As fans filed into Lee Arena to support the Washburn Ichabods Nov. 18, they were in for a match up between Washburn and Rockhurst University.
The Ichabods were in control of the game from the very beginning. After Rockhurst came up empty on their first possession of the game, Washburn’s Andrew Orr, junior forward, made an easy layup off of a Rockhurst turnover. This gave the Ichabods a lead that they kept throughout the game.
The next Ichabod to light up the board was Sam Ungashick, sophomore guard, who made his first of eight field goals of the game during the second minute of the half.
Ungashick attributed his show-out performance to the help his coaches and teammates have given him so far during his first season on the team.
“The coaches stress confidence and they have given me really good confidence. I’ve been working on my game and so I’m just happy that we went out there and performed well to get this win,” Ungashick said.
Rockhurst was sent to the free throw line early in the half by a foul from Washburn’s Brady Christiansen, sophomore forward, but only made one of the shots giving, Washburn an early 5-1 lead. Rockhurst continued to struggle from the line for the rest of the game.
Emmanuel Byrd, sophomore forward, was the second Ichabod off the bench to get into the game and was sent to the free throw line shortly after. He made both shots giving the Ichabods their first double-digit lead of the game and adding to the 32 total points the non-starters were able to score.
Throughout the rest of the first half, Byrd was a key rebounder and scorer for the Ichabods with eight points and four rebounds.
“I just focus on keeping my composure, trying to make shots and adding to the total score that we have,” Byrd said.
Both teams ran into foul trouble and were in the bonus with five minutes left in the first half and a late foul by Jake Schadegg, junior guard, put the Ichabods into the double bonus.
With seven seconds before halftime, Rockhurst committed a shot clock violation which led to a Washburn timeout to set up a last-second play.
Coming out of the timeout, Washburn inbounded the ball to Ungashick who received a screen from Orr around half court to open him up for a layup right at the buzzer giving Washburn a 44-32 lead at the half.
“We wanted to get Ungashick going downhill with Orr setting a small screen around half court as [Rockhurst] was kind of in a soft press,” said Brett Ballard, head coach. “Ungashick did a good job of breaking it off on his own and had a nice little layup finish.”
As the teams returned to the court for the second half, it was Ungashick who scored first for the Ichabods. Ungashick continued to score throughout the half giving him 21 points by the end of the game.
Halfway through the second half, the Rockhurst bench received a technical foul sending Schadegg to the free-throw line to make both shots putting Washburn up 69-49.
Christiansen was a defensive rebounding machine for the Ichabods the whole game, limiting Rockhurst’s second-chance shots, which helped Washburn keep their commanding lead in both halves.
With five and a half minutes left in the game, Orr picked up his third assist when he found his teammate Jack Bachelor, freshman guard, on the other side of the lane who then scored off the pass from Orr.
As the clock wound down to the final minute of the game, Bachelor was able to repay Orr for his assist by hitting Orr in the paint for a layup giving Orr 12 points and himself a fifth assist on the night.
Rockhurst had the last possession of the game where Timaris Brown, sophomore forward, was able to knock down a three-point shot out of the final timeout of the game which brought the final score to 82-66 giving the Ichabods their second victory of the season.
Edited by Jayme Thompson and Sydney Peterson
