By Tyler Duke, Staff Writer
Stetson made their late run, but Damien Wilson and Kennesaw State proved to be too much as the Owls made all of the big plays down the stretch to defeat the Hatters Saturday, 61-56.
KSU (10-19, 4-8) got off to a quick start which Stetson (8-20, 2-10) could not overcome in the second half.
The Hatters came back from a large, early deficit to take their first lead at 40-38 with 14:32 remaining in the game. The Owls responded quickly to regain a sizeable lead for much of the second half. Stetson fought back once again late in the game to get within one with 2:30 remaining, but KSU responded with 10 points in the final two minutes – including five from Wilson – to pull away with the victory.
Wilson was huge off of the bench for the Owls with 21 points on 7-14 shooting and six rebounds in 32 minutes. He scored a season-high 28 against Stetson earlier this year. Bernard Morena also stepped up with 15 points, 11 of which came in the first half to spark KSU’s initial run.
“I told them that the first four minutes [of the second half] are going to dictate what this game is going to be,” KSU head coach Jimmy Lallathin said. “I thought against Florida Gulf Coast we came out in the first four minutes and played as well as we had, and we hadn’t had that lull, So today we sort of took that step back, and [Stetson] made it a game. I told them, ‘we’ve got to get back to how we started,’ and they brought the energy, so I was very proud of them for that.”
Unlike the FGCU game where the Owls’ offense was perimeter oriented, they only connected on one three pointer against Stetson. Despite that, they were able to create offense all day and get easy looks around the rim. That aggression on offense led to KSU getting to the free throw line 24 times in the game and converting 18 of them.
“Our games we’ve won this year, we’ve shot the ball really well from behind the arc,” said Lallathin. “Today we didn’t, but we still got the win, and that’s a certain maturation of these guys and not settling. It was a great team win for us.”
With the win, KSU reached 10 wins on the season for the first time since the 2009-2010 season.
The Owls will be back in action on Wednesday as they play the Northern Kentucky Norse (11-15, 5-6) at home. KSU lost to Northern Kentucky 76-72 in January on the road.
