WHEELING, W.Va. (Jan. 19) - Led by a double-double from freshman forward
Emmanuel Ansong (Bordentown, N.J./Canterbury School), the Wheeling Jesuit University men's basketball team notched a 78-68 win over the University of Virginia-Wise Saturday evening in a Mountain East Conference (MEC) game at the McDonough Center.
The win improves the Cardinals to 2-14 overall, 1-9 in the MEC. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers fall to 3-7 in conference play, 5-10 overall this season.
Ansong established season-highs in virtually every category with his first-career double-double of 22 points and 14 rebounds. Freshman guards
Steve Cannady (Bowie, Md./St. Vincent Pallotti) and
Franck Kamgain (Kansas CIty, Mo./DME Sports Academy) each posted 17 points, while freshman forward
Tariq Woody (Canton, Mich./Novi) chipped in 13 points. Kamgain also dished out a team-high five assists in the win.
UVA-Wise led 11-10 six minutes into the game when the Cardinals mounted a 10-2 run to open up a 20-13 lead with 9:19 left in the first half. The Cavaliers answered with 10-straight points of their own to reclaim the lead, before a Cannady trey knotted the game up at 23-23 at the five-minute mark. Both sides traded baskets down the stretch and UVA-Wise entered halftime with a 32-31 lead thanks to a layup in the closing seconds of the first half.
The Cavaliers pushed their lead to five, 38-33, in the opening two minutes of the second half. WJU rallied to tie the game at 44 and took the lead on a steal and dunk by Ansong at the 13:15-mark of the second half. The Cardinals seized control of momentum with a 14-6 run, capped off by a Kamgain dunk, to open up a 60-51 lead with 8:20 left in the game.
The emotional high from the Kamgain dunk came to an abrupt stop when a power surge caused the lights inside the McDonough Center to go out and force both teams into their locker rooms for a 20 minute delay.
Despite the delay the Cardinals remained focused and led by as many as 14 points, 74-60, in the closing minutes to secure first-year Head Coach
John Peckinpaugh's first MEC win.
WJU shot 29 of 64 (45 percent) for the game, including 17 of 30 (57 percent) from the field in the second half.
The Cardinals will look to ride the momentum of the win when they travel to South Euclid, Ohio on Wednesday, January 23 to take on Notre Dame (Ohio) in a MEC contest at 7:30 p.m.