Wabash junior Kyle Medeiros (Indianapolis, IN/Ben Davis) (right) fired a 12-foot jumper as time expired to complete the Little Giants' come-from-behind victory over the Kenyon College Lords Saturday afternoon. Wabash won 56-54, giving the Little Giants a home game in the opening round of the North Coast Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Tournament Tuesday night.
With the score tied at 54-54, Medeiros grabbed a loose ball in the lane under the Wabash basket and launched a jump shot that found the bottom of the net, giving the Little Giants the victory in a game that saw Wabash lead early before being forced to rally from an eight-point deficit in the final ten minutes of the contest.
Kenyon's Tyler Rehm launched a jump shot from the left baseline with two seconds left that ended up as an airball. Medeiros grabbed the rebound and immediately called timeout. Wabash had to move the basketball 94 feet in 1.4 seconds to try for the win. The Little Giants did it with a length-of-the-floor pass from Gary Simkus (Highland, IN/Highland) that was batted back toward Medeiros for the game-winning shot.
The Little Giants could have saved themselves from another last-second effort, their second in as many games, after jumping out to an early lead in the game.
The Little Giants led by as many as 13 points in the first half and held a 33-25 edge at halftime before a 9-1 run by the Lords tied the game at 34-34. It would be Kenyon that would race out to a lead midway through the second period, moving in front by eight points with 4:33 left in the contest.
Medeiros nailed a three to trim the lead to five. A minute later Simkus cut the lead to three with a layup off an Adonis Joseph (Mishawaka, IN/Mishawaka) steal as the Little Giants employed a full-court press.
Junior Kyle Coffey (Greenwood, IN/Center Grove) provided the preliminary heroics with 35 seconds showing on the game clock. The center battled for a rebound off of a Simkus missed three-pointer, snared the board and tipped the followup in. A foul on the attempt sent Coffey to the free throw line, where he connected on the old-fashioned three-point play to tie the game at 54-54.
The made free throw was one of few converted attempts for Wabash in the game. The Little Giants struggled at the stripe, going 9-of-21 in the contest. Wabash hit 21-of-47 shots from the field while holding Kenyon to 16-of-43.
Medeiros paced the Wabash offense with 14 points. Matt Formato had 24 points to lead Kenyon in scoring.
The Little Giants open the conference tournament Tuesday night at home as the number three seed. Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m. Wabash will play Ohio Wesleyan, the number six seed. The Little Giants swept the season series from the Battling Bishops.
Photos:
Celebration - (l-r) Mike Woods, Kyle Coffey (50), and Doug Ross (32) celebrate after Kyle Medeiros' last-second shot goes in to give Wabash the victory.
Anticipation - Kenyon and Wabash players wait to see if the Medeiros jumper goes in.