NORTH NEWTON, Kan. - Despite struggling from long-range on Friday night, William Woods (2-3) nearly pulled off a second-half comeback against Kansas Wesleyan (3-2) in the Bethel College Classic.
DJ Purnell led all scorers on the night with 22 points, connecting on both of his efforts from long range and all four trips to the line, adding 10 rebounds for his first double-double of the season.
Woods got off to a bit of a slow start in the first half, but managed to close the gap and take a 13-10 lead with just under 13 minutes on the clock. After a fast break triple by Purnell and a defensive stop,
Lavel Harris banked in a layup with 12:37 to play.
After KWU responded with a triple and a fast break bucket, the Owls snatched back the lead and held on until just outside of the eight-minute mark before hitting a cold spell. After a Purnell trey with 7:24 to play, Woods missed its next five field goal attempts and turned the ball over three times as the Coyotes turned the 24-21 WWU lead into a 42-30 KWU edge.
Purnell re-ignited the Owls offense with a layup with 2:18 to play, with
Gacoby Jones Jr.,
Joey Brown IV and
Xavier Iyeyemi all hitting down the stretch to close the gap to 44-36 at halftime.
Kansas Wesleyan got the better start out of the locker room in the second stanza, pulling away as far as 53-39 before Woods hit its stride. A three-pointer by Harris at the 11:11 mark closed the gap to single digits and a triple by
Nate Schwartze brought the Owls within seven with 8:14 left.
Woods continued to nip away at the deficit, with Schwartze knocking down a three-ball with 2.1 seconds on the clock. The Owls managed to fowl KWU before the inbounds pass to keep any time from coming off the clock, but after a miss on the back-end of the bonus, Purnell's last-second heave was just slightly off the mark.
Purnell was one of four scorers in double figures for Woods on the night, joined by Schwartze,
Henry Shannon III and
Kyle Belgrave II. The Owls controlled the glass, bringing down 13 offensive rebounds (34 total) to just three (28 total) for the Coyotes. WWU hit at a 45.2 percent clip from the floor (28-62) and a 25 percent (6-24) pace from distance, edged slightly by KWU's 53.1 percent (26-49) overall mark and 46.7 percent (7-15) rate from beyond the arc. The teams shot roughly equal from the free throw line, but KWU capitalized on six more trips to the charity stripe with five more makes than WWU.
The Owls close out action in the Bethel Classic with an early season rematch against the Threshers. Tipoff is set for 5 p.m.
