The seven seniors on the Baker University men’s basketball team played their last regular season game Thursday against Benedictine College and their leadership helped the Wildcats earn a 54-50 win over the Ravens on Senior Night.
“I think it was a huge night for them,” head coach Sean Dooley said. “Obviously when you have a large senior class like ours, it means a lot. Senior Night as a coach, you are kind of worried about emotionally where they are going to be at, but I thought our guys did a good job of channeling those emotions in a positive way. It was kind of fitting that we had some seniors out there who hit some big shots.”
The Wildcats trailed Benedictine by as many as nine points in the second half, but fought back to tie it up at 40-40 with two free throws by junior Julian Mills with 4:19 remaining. However, the Ravens retook the lead on the next possession with a 3-pointer from Charlie Wallrapp, who had a game-high 23 points.
After two free throws from senior Ben Steinlage and a field goal from BC’s Jonathan Anaekwe, the Ravens led 45-42 with 2:42 to go, but senior Corey Anderson tied it up by knocking one down from behind the arc.
The Ravens went back in front 47-45 on two free throws from Anaekwe, but Anderson answered as he drove to the basket for two as Benedictine was called for defensive goaltending with 1:30 left.
On the Ravens’ next possession, Anaekwe was called for an offensive foul, and the Wildcats had the chance to take the lead with less than a minute remaining. The Ravens attempted to key in on Anderson, but he found fellow senior Jordan Honore open in the corner for three to put BU up 50-47 with 47 seconds to go.
“I saw the shot clock was going down a little bit and I was open, so coach just says to always have confidence in your jump shot, so I took it and it happened to go in,” Honore said. “I was really excited and thanked all of my teammates. We worked really hard on that possession and I got to convert.”
Honore was one of five seniors on the floor during the play and senior Samer Jassar, who was also in, believed there was no better person to take the shot.
“Out of everyone from this team who I would have wanted to make that big shot, I would have wanted Jordan to make it because he is a humble kid,” Jassar said. “He is a great kid. For those five guys to be out on the court at that point of the game was huge. I’m proud of everybody.”
Baker did not relinquish the lead as senior Todd Eils and Honore sealed the victory with a pair of free throws.
“It was a great team win,” Dooley said. “We had a lot of guys step up and make plays down the stretch and we will need to do that going forward.”
The win for the Wildcats snapped a five-game losing streak and also avenged a 50-39 loss to the Ravens in Atchison earlier this season.
“We knew it was going to be low scoring. We kind of hit some shots late to kind of lift the score a little bit because it was in the 40s pretty late in the game,” Dooley said. “We tried to do some things to kind of wear them out. They are really hard to score on.”
While Dooley believes the win against the Ravens will give the Wildcats confidence going into the Heart of America Athletic Conference Tournament, he realized that BU would have to play a similar style of game in order to defeat MidAmerica Nazarene University in the first round matchup.
The teams will square off Thursday in Olathe in a rematch of last year’s HAAC championship game.
Baker will enter the game as the No. 6 seed and will go on to play the winner of Culver-Stockton College and Avila University if they can pull off the upset.
BU finished the regular season with an overall record of 15-13 and 8-10 in conference play.
