Ramapo College Winning Streak Snapped After Loss To Ohio Wesleyan University

Returning to action after the Christmas break, the Ramapo College Roadrunners traveled to Las Vegas for the eighth annual D3Hoops.com Classic Tournament at the South Point Hotel & Casino. The Roadrunners first game would be no easy task going up against 14th ranked Ohio Wesleyan University.

Early in the first half, the Roadrunners held their own against the Battling Bishops holding an 11-10 lead with less than 15 minutes remaining. However, the advantage and momentum would swing dramatically in Ohio Wesleyan University’s favor due mainly in part to unleashing six three-pointers that sparked a 17-6 run that put the Battling Bishops up 27-17 with less than 11 minutes left.

Ramapo managed to hang in the contest pulling to within five at 30-25 on a trifecta from Connor Romano with eight minutes to go. That was as close as the Roadrunners would get the rest of the way as Ohio Wesleyan’s explosive surge continued draining a tournament record 13 treys in the first half for a 47-35 advantage at halftime.

“They dropped three’s in both halves and put us away in the second half,” said Head Coach Chuck McBreen. (Nate) “Axlerod is a pre-season first-team All-American point guard, so we knew they would put him in ball screens and when they would get help out and kick out to the shooters.”

“We tried to do the best job we could but obviously could not guard the three-point line.

“We told our guys the key to this game would be to wear them down, punish them inside and pound the backboards and we did none. We only had five offensive rebounds and got outrebounded by a team that is minus four rebounds a game and only nine offensive rebounds.”

“At the end of the day a good effort by them and obviously they wanted it more than we did and not our best effort.”

In the second half, Ohio Wesleyan inflicted more damage from the perimeter, canning 12 more three-pointers. They ended up shooting 25 of 53 from beyond the arc as the lead grew to over 20 points in the first four minutes of the half. Averaging 19.9 points per game, senior guard Seth Clark poured in a game-high 24 points, including 7-of-14 trifectas. Leading scorer for the Battling Bishops, Nate Axelrod (20.2 points per game) dropped in 18 points, and Nick Heidel chipped in with 17 points.

Thomas Bonacum led the Roadrunners in scoring with 15 points while Nick Stanek added 10 points.

Next up for Ramapo (9-2) is a match-up against Central College (3-7) with tip-off at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and 2:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

“We don’t have much time to regroup with the turnaround tomorrow and told our guys adversity reveals character and at the end of the day have some adversity here after this shellacking,” McBreen said.

“We’ll see that our character and what we’re made of tomorrow and what team comes to play, our team that played against Randolph-Macon and Ohio Wesleyan or team that played nine other games.”