FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WFFT) – The Indiana Tech men’s basketball team opened up the 2021 portion of their schedule Tuesday evening with a 78-67 victory over Mount Vernon Nazarene University inside the Schaefer Center to snap a four-game losing skid.
Grant Smith led the way with a game-high 18 points and 11 rebounds to pick up his third double-double of the year. Josh Kline and Lucas Lehrman had 11 points apiece, with the former adding seven rebounds and the latter adding four rebounds, two assists and a block. Rog Stein had 10 points, five rebounds and two assists.
The Cougars held the early advantage thanks to a 12-7 run to start the game, but a basket from Kline led to a 7-0 spurt to give the Warriors a 14-12 lead at the 13:02 mark. MVNU tied the game back up on their next possession, but it was all Tech after that as the team went on a 22-2 run over the next eight minutes to take a 36-16 lead. Lehrman had eight points during the spurt while David Froedge had seven off the bench while the team’s hot shooting led to an 18-28 (64.3%) shooting performance through the first 20 minutes as the Orange and Black entered the locker room leading 43-28.
Tech continued to build upon their lead in the second half, using a 15-7 spurt to go up 58-35 with 13:39 to play. Mount Vernon never quit though and kept chipping away at the lead thanks to six triples in the second half. A lob ball from Smith found Lehrman for the slam dunk with 11:01 to go in the game that brought the small but loud Schaefer Center crowd to its feet as the hosts made it a 62-42 game. The Cougars kept playing though, cutting the deficit down to 73-61 with 4:26 to play. The Warriors held strong though, keeping the visitors off the scoreboard for the next four minutes and going 3-4 from the charity stripe to ice the game and move back over the .500 mark.
Tech (7-6) will look to start Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) play next week at some point. A new conference schedule is scheduled to be voted on later this week.
