WOOSTER, OH – After shooting a blistering 67 percent from the field, the University of Rochester men's basketball team earned a solid road win on Saturday, defeating the College of Wooster 91-80 in an inter-regional matchup at Timkin Gymnasium.
7th-ranked Rochester (9-1) as a team set numerous season-highs in the victory, including most points, most field goals made (32), highest field goal percentage, highest 3-point percentage and free throws made (19).
The loss drops Wooster to 5-2 on the season.
Senior Ross Gang and graduate student Dan Masino led the Yellowjackets with 21 points each, with the pair combining to miss just two field goal attempts in the game. Gang was 8-for-9 from the floor and 5-for-7 at the free throw line and added three assists and three steals.
Masino finished 6-for-7 from the floor, was 2-for-2 from behind-the-arc and 7-for-8 from the charity striple. He also added three assists and a pair of steals.
Matt Wiele finished with 13 points and a team-high six rebounds, while also shooting well, making five of six attempts. Mitchell Kershner added 10 points and three 3-pointers, while Logan Jagodzinski and Andrew Jackson chipped in eight and seven points, respectively.
Wooster had five players reach double-digit scoring, led by Elijah Meredith with 18 points. Nick Everett scored 16 points off the bench for the Fighting Scots while J.J. Cline added 14 points. Najee Hardaway scored 12 with Turner Kurt scoring ten. Jamar Billings dished out 12 of Wooster's 21 assists in the game.
Both teams were nearly unstoppable in the opening ten minutes of the contest. Rochester made its first 11 field goals, while Wooster made nine of its first ten attempts. The score was 27-23 Rochester after eight minutes of game action following a C.J. Amsellem layup.
Masino and Gang were the leading scorers in the opening minutes for Rochester, scoring 18 of the team's first 27 points. Matt Niemczura, making his first start of the season, added five points in the early going as well for the Yellowjackets.
After Rochester cooled off a bit, the Fighting Scots edged ahead by one, up 36-35, with six and half minutes left in the opening period following a layup inside from Cline. That bucket capped an 11-6 spurt for Wooster.
Carter Warstler hit a triple for Wooster with under two minutes to play in the half to put the hosts up by three, but Rochester got layups from T.C. Price and Wiele to head into halftime up by one, 49-48.
In the second half, Rochester scored ten of the first 13 points to boost its lead to eight with 16:32 on the clock.
Over the next three and a half minutes, five different Fighting Scots scored in a 10-5 spurt, cutting the lead back down to three with under 13 minutes to play, but that was as close as Wooster would get the rest of the way, as Rochester was on its way to its fourth straight win.
Wooster got as close as six points down with five minutes left, but Gang and Masino scored six straight for Rochester to boost the lead back up to double-digits where it finished at the completion of the contest.
Rochester now has off for the winter break and returns to action in 2023, hosting RIT on January 3 at 5 pm in the Palestra to conclude the non-conference portion of its schedule.