Box Score
It was a quiet DeSimone Gymnasium for much of the men's basketball game Monday night....and with good reason. Visiting Indiana-Northwest was on fire, taking a 44-31 lead at half, then going on a 10-0 run to start the second stanza.
The Redhawk lead swelled to 27 with 14 minutes left to play and stayed that way with as little as 11:30 to go.
But, the perception was not the final reality, as the resilient Rangers clawed their way back and took a thrilling 91-88 decision.
The comeback was complete when Sam Katula drained a three-ball from the left corner to knot the score at 87-87 with 1:41 to go in the game. Each team made a free throw to tie the game at 88-88 to set up the final dramatics.
The Redhawks were setting up for the final shot when they were whistled for a 5-second violation with 17 ticks left on the clock. LaVontay Fenderson found himself open at the top of the key and knocked down a three-point shot with 1.1 second left on the clock. A desparation heave by the Redhawks was way off and Parkside had pulled it out.
"We played well for about 10 minutes," said UW-Parkside head coach Luke Reigel on the WRJN 1400AM radio postgame show. "Sometimes you have to find a way to win despite not playing your best game."
In the first half, the Rangers were 0-15 from behind the arc, compared to 8-13 for the Redhawks. UW-Parkside picked up the win despite the hot shooting Redhawks' 65 percent effort in shooting for the game.
Fenderson scored a career high 44 points which included a 12-13 effort at the free throw line. The Great Lakes Valley Conference's leading scorer's previous high was set earlier this season at the Western Oregon tournament versus St. Martin's.
Fenderson's 44-point output ranks fourth all-time for a single game in UW-Parkside history. Andy Schmidtmann leads with a 52- point effort and Abdul Jeelani (formerly known as Gary Cole) scored 47 twice. Jeelani went on to have a successful career in the NBA with Portland and Dallas.
"I was just thinking that we needed to get the lead down to 10 and go from there," reasoned Fenderson on the radio post-game show.
Sam Katula was a force off the bench. He scored 18 points and pulled down five key rebounds.
#D.J. Dantzler# notched 10 points, dished out four assists and came up with two steals late in the game.
UW-Parkside was opportunistic, scoring 29 points off of turnovers, compared to the Redhawks who tallied just five points off of Ranger miscues.
The Rangers got 26 points off their bench in the contest.
The win moves the Ranger record to 3-6. Indiana Northwest is 5-10.
UW-Parkside will play host to the No. 1 ranked team in the nation in NCAA Division II in its next game. The undefeated Findlay Oilers will be in the DeSimone Gymnasium Monday, Dec. 29, for a 7:00 p.m. tipoff.
