Offense Stalls for No. 16 WPI in Loss to Gettysburg in Stevens Tournament Opener

Hoboken, NJ --- The WPI men's basketball team dropped a 56-38 game on the road to Gettysburg on Friday night in the Stevens Institute of Technology Holiday Tournament. The Engineers fall to 8-2 overall, while the Bullets improve to 7-3. 

Gettysburg moves on to the tournament Championship tomorrow at 5pm against the host Ducks, who topped Amherst 81-62 earlier today. WPI will play the Mammoths tomorrow at 1pm in the consolation game. 

The Engineers suffered from shooting woes the whole game, connecting on just 19.7% (13-66) from the field and 5.6% (1-18) from three. The 38 points from WPI is the fewest in 16 seasons, marking the lowest offensive output since a 53-36 loss to Babson on January 23, 2008. 

WPI was paced by 10 points from Brett Marelli (Hampton, NH), while John Adams (Douglas, MA) added nine points and a game-high 13 rebounds. J.R. Newman (Havertown, PA) chipped in with six points and Aidan Callahan (Rowley, MA) added six rebounds. 

For Gettysburg, Jordan Stafford (Galloway, NJ) led all players with 20 points, connecting on 6-of-7 from the field and all four of his three-point attempts. Akim Joseph (Port-au-Prince, Haiti) notched nine points, while Carl Schaller (Garnet Valley, PA) had eight points and Aidan Mess (Brookeville, MD) notched eight points and a team-high eight rebounds. 

Gettysburg was hot out of the gates, rattling off a 10-0 start to the game. WPI finally got on the board with a lay-up from Marelli, just over four minutes into the first half. The Bullets kept the pressure on, opening a 13-point advantage (17-4) midway through the half. 

The Engineers used a 7-2 run to get the lead down to eight points with 6:54 left in the half, backed by four points from Marelli. Gettysburg pushed it back to 10 points before WPI made it a seven-point game (27-20) with a Newman lay-up to close the half. 

An early push to open the second half closed the gap to 27-26, as WPI opened the frame on a 6-0 run. Gettysburg pushed the lead back to five (31-26) on a three from Stafford, but the Engineers countered with five unanswered to tie the game at 31-31 with 14:10 to play. 

Following the tie, the Bullets put together a 9-2 run to take a 40-33 lead and later pushed it to 10 points (45-35) on another Stafford three with nine minutes to play. WPI got no closer down the stretch, as the Gettysburg lead grew to as many as 18 points, with the bullets finishing out the 56-38 victory.