Box Score

The Malone University men's basketball team (12-10, 10-8 GLIAC) controlled the ballgame for the first 30 minutes, then survived a mild scare over the final 10 minutes to hold off Tiffin University (8-14, 4-13 GLIAC) 81-75 Thursday night.

With the victory, the Pioneers stretched their winning streak to three in a row while also grabbing sole possession of eighth place in the overall GLIAC standings.  The Top 8 teams qualify for the GLIAC Postseason Tournament at the end of the regular season.

The first half was all Pioneers as they used 12 points from senior Cory Veldhuizen to manufacture a 39-22 halftime lead. It appeared that the second half would be more of the same as Malone enjoyed a comfortable 20-point lead with 12 minutes remaining. However, Tiffin ran off ten straight points over the next three minutes to cut the lead in half. The home team would trim the lead to five with 56 seconds to play before Malone responded with four unanswered points to hold off the hard-charging Dragons.

Sophomore Christian Graves, who entered the contest ranked second in the GLIAC averaging 3.3 three-pointers per game, while shooting them at a 47.1% clip, stroked five more trifectas on just seven attempts for a team-high 19 points. Senior Isiah Elliott was his usual reliable self, scoring 16 points, hauling in six rebounds, and contributing six helpers. Senior Daniel Wise added 14 points and five rebounds and Veldhuizen dropped 15 points.

Instrumental in the victory was Malone's defense on Tiffin's Joe Graessle. The Pioneers held the sharp-shooter to just nine points on 3-of-12 shooting and 0-for-5 accuracy from behind the arc, well below his season average of 20.5 points per game. Graessle torched the Pioneers for 42 points in their first meeting this season, but the Pioneers made a concerted effort to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

Malone shot an efficient 27-of-60 (45%) on field goals and 8-of-18 (44%) on three-pointers. Tiffin went 28-of-55 (51%) from the floor and 5-of-14 (36%) on three's, while also outrebounding Malone 36-30, but couldn't overcome its poor start.

Malone returns to the court Saturday, Feb. 15, when they travel to Ohio Dominican University to do battle with the Panthers at 3:00 p.m.. Malone is a perfect 3-0 against Ohio Dominican since joining the GLIAC, having defeated the Panthers at Osborne Hall earlier this season 84-74.  Fans can listen to all the action live on the Malone Sports Network (radio broadcast on ESPN 990 AM or streaming live on www.espn990.com).