Defiance Men Never Trail in HCAC Rout of Hanover

DEFIANCE, Ohio – Travis Schomaeker opened the scoring on Saturday with a three-point shot and the Defiance College men's basketball team never trailed in a convincing, 75-58, victory against Hanover inside the Karl H. Weaner Community Center.

The Jackets hawked the Hanover shooters all afternoon, holding the visitors 24 points below their season average and limiting HC to three-of-27 shooting from three-point territory. The Panthers missed on all 12 of their long-range attempts in the opening stanza, as Defiance took control early and never looked back.

A 14-5 charge from DC broke open a 13-13 tie and lifted the Jackets to a nine-point cushion, before a 14-2 spurt just over one minute later broke the game open with a 41-24 lead for the Purple and Gold.

Hanover closed the half with a bucket to trim the margin to 41-26 and eventually knocked in its first three-point shot of the contest to draw within 12 points at the 12:41 mark of the final period.

That would be as close as things would get, as Drew Frizell buried back-to-back triples of his own to push the spread back to 18 at 54-36 with 11:34 left in the contest. DC cruised from there, pushing the lead to as many as 20 in the closing minutes, before settling on the 75-58 victory.

Hanover (5-2, 2-1 HCAC) shot just 32.3 percent from the floor, including the abysmal 11.1-percent rate from deep, en route to posting its first loss against a non-Division I foe and its lowest scoring output of the season.

Defiance ended the game with a 50.0-percent clip from the field and knocked down 40.0 percent of its three-point tries, while winning the battle on the glass by a 42-35 margin and outscoring the Panthers in the paint 36-28.

Frizell connected on five-of-11 shots from downtown and ended with a game-high 17 points, while Ryan Hicks added 15 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks for his second double-double of the year.

Wolfrum also recorded 15 points and narrowly missed his second-straight double-double by pulling down nine boards and adding one steal and one block. Mason Roth was the fourth Yellow Jacket in double figures with 10 points, while Kent Tietje turned in the best outing of his young career with six points, five rebounds and one block.

Wade Wooley also played well with six rebounds and one block, while Schomaeker ended with five points, five rebounds, three assists and one block in the Defiance victory.

DC (3-4, 1-2 HCAC) will be back in action on Thursday at 7:30 pm, when it hosts Kalamazoo (2-4) in a non-conference tilt.