GROVE CITY, Pa. - By winning a consecutive game for the first time all season, the Westminster College men's basketball team locked up the No. 6 seed in next week's Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) Tournament with a 66-49 win at Grove City Saturday. The Titans improve to 7-18 overall and 3-11 in the PAC, while the Wolverines fall to 5-20 overall and 2-12 in the league.
Westminster will play at either No. 3-seeded Bethany or No. 3-seeded Saint Vincent on Tuesday at a time to be determined.
Freshman guard Anthony Thomas led the Titans with a game-high 21 points and a career-high 10 rebounds to go with four assists. The 21 points are his second-highest total of his career.
Sophomore guard Matt Shiner, making his third career start for the Titans, bucketed a career-high 15 points, surpassing his previous total of 13 which came in his last start vs. Thiel last Saturday. Elsewhere for Westminster, junior forward Rob Briggs scored nine points to go with eight rebounds.
Luke Tomaselli led Grove City with 13 points and a career- and game-high 15 rebounds. Kris Verderber also scored 12 points for the Wolverines.
Westminster took care of the ball with a season-low seven turnovers. The Titans' previous season low was eight in the win over Geneva Wednesday for the only two sub-10 turnover games of the season.
The Titans took their first double-figure lead of the game by scoring the first bucket of the second half after Westminster led 33-24 at halftime. The Titans started the second half with a 14-2 run to take a 21-point, 47-26 lead with 15:56 remaining. That ended up being Westminster's largest lead of the game, but the Titans led by no fewer than 11 points the rest of the way.