ANGOLA, Ind. – The Trine University men's basketball team won their NCAA Tournament Second Round game over Coe College on Saturday night 76-70 after dominating early in the first half and withstanding a comeback attempt by the Kohawks.
The Thunder (25-4) move on to the Sectional Semifinal Round where their opponent will be Washington University while the 2024 season comes to an end for Coe at 22-6. More information on that game will be available in the coming days.
Going into the locker room for halftime, Trine won the opening period 46-29 and were ahead by 20 before a last second three-point make by the Kohawks as the buzzer sounded. The Thunder caught fire from downtown by going 7-of-14 from the long distance and going 19-for-36 (52.8%) from the field in total. Coe would win the second half, but it was not enough to dig all the way out of their hole.
Cortez Garland led the team in scoring with 23 points with 15 coming in the first half alone. Drew Moore (16 points) and Fred Garland (10 points) also added double figure scoring efforts. Aidan Smylie and Emmanuel Megnanglo led the team in rebounding with 11 and 10, respectively.
A 15-4 run to open the first half was highlighted by three-point makes by Nate Tucker, Cortez Garland and Fred Garland. Grant Pahl would add his name to that list shortly after a timeout called by Coe to make it 22-12 with 12 minutes to play in the first half. A 10-2 run for the Thunder put the scoreboard at 39-21 with just under five minutes remaining.
Trailing by 17 at the break, the Kohawks showed fight early with scores on their first four trips down the floor. The Trine lead was cut all the way down to eight at 49-41 at the under-16 media timeout. At 13:56 to go, Coe had gotten to within five at 54-49. The team leaders in scoring in Cortez Garland and Moore continued to fuel the offense, but the Kohawks got back to even at 60-60 with 7:26 left.
The first lead in the second half for Coe came a few moments later with two free throws, but that would be the only lead of the night for the team as Trine would get back in front and hold on for the victory.
After a block by Pahl, Smylie came down to the other end to bury his first shot of the day with 4:12 remaining to give the Thunder a three-point lead. Smylie would hit another big shot, this time a three with the shot clock winding down to make it a two-possession contest at 70-66 with 1:36 on the clock.
A foul with 40 seconds remaining put Cortez Garland at the charity stripe, where he would sink two. Misses at the line gave the Kohawks life, but a stop by the Thunder with eight seconds left allowed Fred Garland to leak out for a dunk to punctuate the 76-70 win.