BEREA -- Survive and advance! On Tuesday evening, the Heidelberg University men's basketball did just that as they erased a 14-point second half deficit and defeated the No. 4 ranked Baldwin Wallace Yellow Jackets by a final score of 75-69.
No. 5 ranked Heidelberg (12-14) benefited from an electric 30-point effort from
Tamal Watkins who converted on 64% of his shots from the floor which included a blistering 6-of-8 from beyond the arc. Padding his stats, Watkins helped HU with five rebounds, two assists and a steal.
Emmanuel Perdue contributed a crucial 19 points on 57% shooting the ball. Perdue also added six boards, three assists and three steals.
Josh Dixon was the lone other Heidelberg player to reach double figures as he added 10 points and led the team with seven rebounds.
After exchanging points in the early goings, Heidelberg saw their final lead of the first half come with 13:34 remaining after
Logan West-Holmes connected on a layup after a feed from
Nakhi Taylor.
From there, BW (14-12) controlled proceedings throughout the half, eventually establishing an 11-point lead after Zach Cebula's bucket with 15 seconds left on the clock.
Immediately out of the halftime intermission, the Yellow Jackets increased their lead to 14 after a layup from Alex Nahra and a 3-pointer from Anthony Mazzeo sandwiched a layup from
Tamal Watkins.
Staring down a large deficit at the early part of the second half, Heidelberg had a long road ahead, but began pecking away at the BW lead with 18:02 left in the game.
Six quick points from
Emmanuel Perdue and a
Dylan Woods layup closed the gap down to eight after just 2:12 of play had elapsed. Shortly after,
Tamal Watkins' 3-pointer narrowed the deficit even further to just 45-40 with 14:20 left.
Baldwin Wallace then found a bit of rhythm offensively and pushed their lead back out to seven for a portion of the second half.
Down 62-56 with 7:42 left in the game,
Josh Dixon connected on two layups prior to another layup off the hands of Perdue leveled the score at 62 with just under six minutes left.
Holding onto the momentum, Heidelberg was halted by another Anthony Mazzeo 3-pointer that pushed BW back ahead 65-62. However, Dixon answered back, scoring a layup and then converting two critical free throws with 4:47 left to give the Student Princes their first lead since the 12-10 advantage with 13:34 left in the first half.
Looking to protect the lead,
Tamal Watkins took over, scoring The Berg's last nine points of the game over the final 2:28 of play.
Along with Watkins' hot hand, the Student Princes sat in on defense to hold BW to just two free throws and a layup over the same span.
The late momentum push saw Heidelberg flip what had been a 14-point deficit into a six-point win at 75-69.
BW was led by 24 points from Drew Sova who also had a game-high 16 rebounds to tally a double-double. Zach Cebula chipped in with 11 off the bench.
In the team statistics, Heidelberg shot an efficient 49% from the field, which included 42% from deep. BW also shot the ball rather efficiently at 44%, but struggled greatly from range as they were just 4-of-17 on 3-pointers.
Heidelberg held a glaring advantage in one key category. The Student Princes converted 21 points off of 12 Yellow Jacket turnovers, while BW managed just six points off of 10 HU turnovers.
The win marks the program's first OAC Tournament win since the 2011 season, and is the first in the head coaching career of
Andy Bucheit. Bucheit now holds a 1-5 record in tournament games.
The No. 5 ranked Student Princes will now travel to top overall seed and regular season champions Mount Union on Thursday for a 7 p.m. tipoff. Heidelberg will look to advance to the Tournament Championship game and halt the Purple Raiders' 15 game win streak, which started after the Student Princes handed Mount their lone OAC loss on January 4th of this season.
Fans should be aware of altered ticket prices for the OAC Tournament: Adults are $12, seniors (62+) are $8, non-OAC students are $5 and OAC students are free. Regular season passes are not valid.
