Yellow Jackets Suffer Third Straight Loss at Tiffin

by Josh Decker

The Cedarville men’s basketball team suffered its third straight loss Saturday afternoon with a 77-62 defeat at Tiffin. The result drops the Jackets’ record to 6-5 in the G-MAC where they sit at fifth place.

Junior Branden Maughmer paced the Cedarville offense with 17 points, while junior Isaiah Speelman was the only other Yellow Jacket in double figures with 10 points in the game. Junior Kollin VanHorn dropped nine points, and senior Conner TenHove contributed eight points. Quinton Green finished the night with six points.

TenHove led the Jackets in rebounding, pulling down 10 boards. Speelman contributed on the boards too, finishing with seven rebounds.

Cedarville got off to another slow start, starting off only shooting 3-9 from the field. By the first media timeout, the Jackets found themselves down 13-6.

After hitting a couple shots to trim the Tiffin lead, Cedarville fell into another offensive drought, going five possessions without a bucket.

The Yellow Jackets went into the locker-room down 39-32, shooting 41 percent from the field and a woeful 14 percent from the 3-point line after going 1-7 in the half.

Unfortunately, the final 20 minutes of the game started continued to be rough for the Cedarville offense, as the Jackets did not score on their first five possessions. The team had committed three turnovers by the first media timeout of the half, but the Tiffin lead was still only seven.

Cedarville cut the lead to one with the score at 46-45 midway through the period, but the Jackets continued to struggle with offensive sets and movement.

The Dragons started to pull away, and the lead was clearly out of reach with only a couple minutes left in the contest, as Tiffin secured the 77-62 victory.

Cedarville’s shooting did not get any better in the second half, as the team finished the game shooting 41 percent from the floor and converting only three shots from behind-the-arc in the game while shooting 20 percent from deep.

The Jackets did control the glass in the game, finishing with a 43-27 advantage over Tiffin.

One major factor that plagued Cedarville was turnovers. The Yellow Jackets’ ended the game with 18 turnovers, which translated to 18 points off turnovers for the Dragons.

The Jackets’ are set to hit the court again on February 8th as the team travels to take on Findlay in another G-MAC matchup. Tip-off is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. as Cedarville attempts to snap the losing streak and get a key win against a big rival.

Josh Decker is a junior Sport Business Management major, and a sports reporter for Cedars. He loves playing sports with friends, and spends much of his free time as a student assistant for the Cedarville men’s basketball team.