Wooster Victorious at Carnegie Mellon Tournament

Randy Sistrunk

PITTSBURGH, Pa. - The College of Wooster men's basketball team built a 20-point first-half lead and staved off a rally by Carnegie Mellon University in the second half to win 74-60 in the title game of the Carnegie Mellon Tournament today, marking Wooster's second tournament championship in as many weeks.

The win gave Fighting Scot head coach Steve Moore his 375th career victory in 20 years of coaching, which includes the last 14 seasons at Wooster where he has gone 288-78 for a .787 winning percentage.

The Scots, who are ranked third in NCAA Division III by the most recent d3hoops.com poll and improved to 4-0 on the season, saw their 39-19 lead with 6:24 to play in the first half dwindle down to just a seven-point margin at 65-58 with 3:50 left in regulation. In fact, the Tartans had a chance to pull within four at that point, but missed a three-pointer, which was followed by a game-clinching 9-0 run by Wooster.

In the first 15 minutes of action, the Scots dominated the hosts, jumping out to that 20-point lead, however, they went cold at the end of the first half, missing 9-of-10 field goal attempts, but still headed to the lockerroom with a comfortable 41-25 advantage.

Individually, Wooster received a big game off of the bench from freshman forward Randy Sistrunk (Canton, Ohio / Canton McKinley), who netted a team-high 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field and grabbed nine rebounds. The backcourt tandem of senior Nate Gaubatz (Wooster, Ohio / Northwestern) and junior Antwyan Reynolds (Mansfield, Ohio / Mansfield Senior) combined for 27 points, 14 rebounds, and nine assists in the win, while also playing well was sophomore forward Bryan Nelson (Kettering, Ohio / Kettering Fairmont), who totaled 11 points on 5-of-6 field goal attempts and eight boards.

Reynolds was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player after scoring 33 points and handing out 11 assists in two games. Sistrunk and Nelson were also named to the all-tournament team.

Three players reached double digits in the scoring column for Carnegie Mellon, which saw its record drop to 1-3, led by Brian McKinney, a freshman guard, who had 13 points while hitting 6-of-10 field goals. Another first-year guard - Russell Borum - registered 11 points and nine rebounds, while sophomore forward Ross Freeman recorded a double-double with 10 points and 14 boards.

Wooster returns to action on Saturday, Dec. 2, when it returns home for its conference opener against Earlham College. Gametime for that contest is set for 2 p.m.