Bluejays complete sweep of struggling Threshers
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
With the way this season has gone for the Bluejays, they've got to be scrounging for anything that will give them some momentum heading into the post-season.
Completing a perfect week with clean sweeps Thursday and Saturday of St. Mary and Bethel, respectively, the Bluejays will have some momentum.
The Bluejays (13-14, 10-8 KCAC) have had prettier games with the two teams combining for 44 fouls, but a 58-34 win Saturday on Senior Night over the visiting Threshers was good enough for Bluejay coach Don Brubacher.
Tabor ends the regular season in a four-way tie for third place.
"I thought we did a good job defensively," he said. "We were fortunate at times they (Threshers) had some open looks they missed, but I thought our defensive play was really good."
Shooting 22 percent from the field is hardly missing a few shots.
That's what the Bluejays gave the Threshers, though, opening up an 8-2 lead with Bethel struggling to find the hoop the entire game.
A sole point was the closest the Threshers could get with Jimmy Charles sinking a basket with 12:46 left in the first half to make it a 10-9 game.
Giving somewhat of an idea of how bad things were for the Threshers, Charles finished as the high-point man with six points.
Tyler Weinbrenner sparked a 7-0 run that pushed Tabor to a 22-11 lead with under 4:30 left before halftime.
Weinbrenner finished second in scoring with 12 points to senior Brad Gattis, who had a game-high 13 points.
But the Bluejays had their share of shooting woes, too, having to do their scoring the final 4:51 at the free-throw line.
"Offensively, we just went through spurts," said Brubacher. "We had a couple of nice runs, but it really got away from us at times on the offensive end and we shot the ball incredibly poorly from outside."
Even with the Bluejays going through their ups and downs, ice-cold Bethel was never in a position to jeopardize the lead, though.
Steven Morgan's basket with just inside :20 cut the Threshers' deficit to 24-14 heading into halftime with Bethel connecting on just six of 28 attempts and four players managing to score.
Compared to the Threshers' 21 percent shooting, Tabor's 35 looked good with the Bluejays getting a boost from 10-for-15 at the free-throw line.
Things for the Threshers went from bad to worse in the opening stages of the second half with the Bluejays scoring 12 unanswered points to blow the lid off the game and stretch Tabor's lead to 40-16.
Throwing up brick after brick, by the time the Threshers got a shot to fall, they were behind 47-17.
Bethel would have been lucky to get the ball into the city pond, ice-cold anywhere on the floor, especially the three-point line, going one-for-15.
Shooting one-for-nine from long-range, the Bluejays' lone three-pointer from Weinbrenner made for the 30-point lead to cap off a 19-1 run in a span under 5:30.
With Brubacher utilizing all his reserves in the final game of the season in Hillsboro, Nathan Owens flushed a basket to give Tabor its largest lead of the game, 53-21, with 9:21 to go.
The whistles continued to blow, but Bethel was able to match the final margin of victory once before the final buzzer.
With the game firmly in control for the Bluejays and the starters on the bench, the biggest test the last 3:00 was to get the reserves into the scoring column.
Tabor opens the first-round of the KCAC tournament Thursday at 7 p.m. when it travels to Lindsborg to face the Bethany Swedes.
