Defense Shines for Taylor in Second-Straight Win
UPLAND, Ind. – Taylor held a high-scoring Wilberforce team 32 points below its season average and pulled away with a strong second half to secure a 68-49 victory inside Odle Arena on Tuesday evening.
Taylor held WU (3-6) to 25 points in the first half and 24 in the second, limiting the Bulldogs to 21-of-63 shooting on the night for a 33.3-percent rate. TU also continued its strong perimeter defense by holding its guests to an 18.8-percent clip from deep.
In addition to keeping an opponent below 70 points for the seventh-straight time to open the season, Taylor forced 24 turnovers and collected a season-high 17 steals.
The strong defense was needed early to keep a struggling TU offense in the game, as the Trojans did not make a field goal for the first 5:16 of the evening and missed their first 10 looks from long distance.
Gavin Yoon ignited a late flurry to close the half with Taylor’s first trey of the contest and followed with another hoop to close a 25-19 deficit to 25-24 with just under two minutes to play. Luke Huffer then connected from downtown to close the scoring and send TU to the break with a 27-25 lead.
Back-to-back dunks from Jason Hubbard extended that cushion to 37-31 and a steal and hoop from Jackson Lewis pushed the spread to 39-31 with 15:09 to play.
Wilberforce battled back with nine-straight tallies to grab a brief one-point lead, only for a Grant Niehaus triple to push Taylor back on top for good and three-straight points from Hubbard made it a 44-40 contest.
The gap swelled to 10 on a three from Aaron Hahn with 6:16 to play and the Trojans maintained a double-digit lead for the duration of the 19-point victory.
After falling in a 40-39 deficit at the 11:32 mark, Taylor finished the game on a 29-9 run and finished the game with seven makes from three-point range in its final 17 chances to help pull away.
Hubbard led the Trojans in scoring once again with 19 points to go with six rebounds, two steals and one block, while Kaden Fuhrmann battled through an off-shooting night to close with 12 points.
Jackson Lewis impacted the game all over the court once again, posting seven points, eight boards, four steals and two assists and Hahn had 10 rebounds, three steals and three assists.
Taylor (2-5) will open Crossroads League play on Saturday, November 20, with a 3:00 pm start at Huntington (5-1).
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