By Eva Dean Foikert
In finding the 103rd way to beat Calvin College in The Rivalry, the Hope College men's basketball team also notched their first three-game win streak of the 2017-18 season. It could come at no better time.
Unlike their January showdown with Calvin at DeVos Fieldhouse when Hope took the lead with only 62 seconds to go in the game (which they eventually won too), the Flying Dutchmen never trailed in this latest Hope/Calvin rivalry contest, defeating the Knights, 76-59, at Van Noord Arena on Saturday in front of a crowd of 4,089.
Hope now co-leads a tight and turbulent MIAA race with Trine University and Adrian College, who also own a 7-3 league record like Hope. Overall, Hope is 13-8.
The loss drops Calvin to 4-6 in the MIAA and 8-13 overall.
Over the course of 97 years in 198 games between these two longtime, contentious men's basketball programs, only 106 points separate them. That's a minuscule difference of only .535353 points per game. Hope now owns a 103-95 all-time record over Calvin.
The Flying Dutchmen also put forth their best defensive performance of the season by holding the Knights to fewer than 60 points. They were stingy with Kalamazoo College too earlier this week when they held the Hornets to 65 points on Wednesday.
"Without question that was our best 40 minutes of defense," Coach Greg Mitchell said. "Certainly that's predicated on the respect we have for the match-ups (with Calvin) and how hard we have to play here. They're certainly big and strong and I thought the key was us trying to refuse what they were trying to do."
Video: Postgame interview