WOOSTER, Ohio – The College of Wooster played a near flawless opening half, which included Xavier Brown establishing a new career high in scoring, and the 16th-ranked Fighting Scots added to their 52-25 halftime lead during the second in securing a 97-56 North Coast Athletic Conference win over Wabash College Saturday afternoon at Timken Gymnasium.

An early 9-0 spurt, fueled by seven points from Brown, allowed Wooster (6-1, 3-0 NCAC) to take its first double-digit lead at 16-6. Following a timeout, Pete Nicksic scored seven-straight points for Wabash (2-5, 1-1 NCAC) as he narrowed the margin to 18-13.

It was pretty much all Scots from that point forward. During the last 11 minutes of the half, they added 14-0 and 9-0 runs for the 27-point advantage.

Among the impressive statistics from the first 20 minutes, Wooster only committed one turnover and Brown scored 26 points, bettering his previous career best for a single game, which had been 24 points twice.

The second half quickly turned into a formality, with the Scots scoring the first seven points (59-25). They extended the lead to 40 (74-34) on a Brown 3-pointer at the 11:32 mark and he sat out the remainder.

The final 41-point margin marked the largest in the teams' series since a similar 96-52 Wooster win on Jan. 13, 2007.

As a team, the Scots shot over 50 percent from the field (.515; 34-of-66) while holding their second consecutive opponent under 30 percent (.286; 18-of-63), and their turnover total was just five.

Brown finished with 35 points, the most by a Wooster player since James Cooper's 37 Jan. 21, 2006. Brown made all five 3-pointers he took, was 13-of-17 overall from the floor, and also tallied a game-high four assists as well as four rebounds and two steals.

Doug Thorpe was the only other Scot in double figures with 11 points, while Jake Mays corralled six rebounds to lead the team in that category.

Nicksic had 13 points, as did Daniel Purvlicis for the Little Giants.

Next for Wooster is final exams, followed by a conference game at Kenyon College (4-3, 1-1 NCAC) Friday night.