WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Virginia Wesleyan men’s basketball team lost at Wheeling on Wednesday night 82-55. The Bobcats shot 22-70 from the field (31.4%) in the game, including 10-38 (26.3%) in the second half.
Wheeling’s Brent Price got the Cardinals in the scoring column first with a mid-range jumper. Jack Lewton answered with his own jumper assisted by Anthony Craven Jr. Kabe Ellis knocked down his first shot attempt after coming back from injury, hitting a three in the opening minutes.
Wesleyan opened up an early 13-9 lead but John Korte started to carry over his shooting from his 40-point performance against West Liberty, knocking down a group of threes to give Wheeling a 29-23 lead with just under four minutes left in the half. Korte extended the lead to nine for the Cardinals but a knockdown three from Tyler Slone and a D’Vante Rivera inbounds layup cut the WU lead to just 36-32 going into the locker room.
Ellis cut the Wheeling advantage to just one with a three to open the second half. The Cardinals were able to put together a pair of layups and an emphatic ally-oop dunk to increase their lead to 10 after the under-15 media time out. Both teams hit a cold stretch, not being able to convert on layups or from behind the arc until a Korte three made it a 52-41 lead for Wheeling and forced the Bobcats to take a timeout to try to slow down the momentum.
The offensive struggles continued for WVWC with the Cardinals taking advantage, opening up the lead to as much as 26 and utilizing a 17-2 run after head coach Derek Sloan called a timeout. The Bobcats went over five minutes without scoring a point, shooting 0-11 from the field in that span. Wheeling grew their advantage to 30 before closing the game out.
Korte scored a game-high 18 points, shooting 3-3 from behind the arc and also grabbing seven rebounds for the Cardinals. Korte was aided by Ryan Reasbeck’s 15 points and Andrew Taylor’s 13 points. Wheeling shot 12-21 from three as a team and produced 40 bench points.
Darius Green finished with 14 points and Slone put in 10 points. Craven Jr. scored six points and pulled down nine rebounds in the loss.
The Bobcats will be at home on Saturday against West Liberty at 4 p.m.
