The Trail

Issue date: 2/9/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Matt Loewen Ryan Delong

The Loggers earned a tough win at home on Feb. 4 against Pacific, winning 85-79. Poor shooting hurt UPS throughout, but clutch free-throw shooting by Ryan Delong and Robert Krauel near the end of the game helped the Loggers hold on for the win.

The game was relatively close in the first half with the Loggers leading by only nine points, where they struggled from long range at 30.8%. The second half did not show much improvement as the Loggers only shot 42%.

While collectively the team shot 7-19 (36.0%), it was Taylor Marsh's 5-7 shooting from long range that helped the Loggers maintain the lead against the Boxers.

Ross Bartlett had 26 points to lead the Boxers and Marsh scored 20 to lead the Loggers.

Acknowledged as Player of the Week and currently holding averages of almost 50% from 3-point range with almost eight attempts per game to lead the team, Marsh had played a key role this year and came up big again on this particular night.

In fact, often times the Loggers have relied on clutch performances from Marsh, including key efforts in games like the Dec. 19 home game against Lewis & Clark in which he hit some difficult three-pointers in the final five minutes to contribute to a comeback from a 15 point deficit.

"My teammates have done a good job of finding me on the perimeter," Marsh said. "And fortunately I've been able to knock down a lot of my shots at the end of the game."

Marsh's example shows just how often this Logger team seems to live and die by 3-point shooting. Their type of offense enables them to take more long-range shots or layups down in the key.

However, Marsh is not alone. This UPS team as a whole relied heavily on a team effort to walk away with a victory on the night.

Making use of their deep bench by pressing frustrated the Boxers as it has other teams, and starters Delong and Antwan Williams continued to bring a good court sense to the game, passing and scoring at will. They created shots all night by driving to the paint and dishing when the shot clock was running down.

Jason Foster and Krauel continued to provide both an offensive and defensive game down low in the paint and have slowly been developing into one of the best big man tandems in the conference as Foster averages 17.6 points on the year, good enough for second in the NWC, while Krauel is right behind him with a 17.1 average, second in the conference. Both are in the top ten in the conference rebounding numbers as well.

The win ties UPS with Lewis & Clark for second place in the NWC at 9-3 and brings the Loggers closer to first place. However, the challenge may lie ahead of them, as the next two games will be at home against Whitworth and Whitman. Whitworth is first in the Northwest Conference, and the Loggers came up short against Whitman earlier in the season.

However, UPS will have the hometown fans by their side at the Fieldhouse where they are yet to lose this year.

It will be exciting to see how far the Loggers will go this year, as they are a young team with promising freshmen. Their road schedule will prove difficult, but if they play cohesively as a unit they could push deep in the NCAA tournament.

• Peter Yi does not like it when his wallet gets stolen, nor does his butterfly knife.

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