SIOUX CENTER, Iowa -- The No. 4 Dakota Wesleyan University men suffered its first loss of the season Wednesday as Dordt College pulled off the upset, winning 84-83 at home.
"I just have to give a lot of credit to Dordt College," DWU head coach Matt Wilber said. "They were able to guard a lot of our plays. What it comes down to was that they made plays down the stretch and made just one more play than we did."
Entering Wednesday night's contest, the closest a team had come to beating DWU was Briar Cliff, who lost to the Tigers by eight. According to Wilber, he was wondering how his team would respond in a game that went down to the wire. Although the Tigers came up just short, he said he came away impressed with how his players handled the situation.
"Outside of a few things not going our way, I don't think we made many mistakes," Wilber said. "Dordt just won the game. We were able to get some shooting looks that looked good, but they just didn't fall. I still have confidence in our guys that we will be on the winning end of this if we get into this situation again."
Jalen Voss led the way offensively for the Tigers (11, 4-1 GPAC) with 28 points, despite playing two minutes in the first half due to foul trouble.
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"You want to talk about second guessing something," Wilber said when debating whether or not he should have put Voss back in later in the first half. "But in the second half, frankly, he was unguardable. He looked like the player we all know that he is."
In addition, Joey Mitchell chipped in 19 points and Trae Bergh scored 14 points.
Despite falling to the Defenders (10-4, 3-3), the Tigers outshot Dordt 54 percent to 51 percent. Dordt shot 53 percent from three-point range, while DWU shot 47 percent from beyond the arc.
DWU next hits the court at 4 p.m. Saturday as it takes on Doane College in Crete, Neb.
"We'll take a look at this game and see what we need to do better, but we're not going to dwell on it," Wilber said. "Frankly, I'm really interested to see how our guys respond from this. It's very early in the year, and no matter early game outcomes, you have to keep moving forward."
Dakota Wesleyan 83
Jalen Voss 13-21 1-2 28, Luke Bamberg 3-8 0-0 8, Trae Bergh 4-10 4-4 14, Kris Menning 2-6 1-2 6, Tate Martin 0-0 0-0 0, Jade Miller 2-5 0-0 4, Terell Newton 2-2 0-0 4, Joey Mitchell 7-9 2-2 19, Stephen Lee 0-0 0-0 0
Dordt College 84
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Bryan Sumner 4-5 0-2 12, Patrick Knoblauch 0-1 0-0 0, Alex Terpstra 2-4 0-0 6, Nathan Rindels 9-15 3-4 21, Andrew O'Donnell 1-4 0-0 2, JD Boer 0-0 0-0 0, Tyler Wolterstorff 3-9 3-3 9, Leighton Sampson 3-6 1-1 7, Taylor Feenstra 4-8 0-0 10, David Den Herder 6-10 5-5 17
Dakota Wesleyan. ..36 47 83
Dordt College. ........41 43 84
3-point field goals -- DWU 9-19 (Voss 1-2, Bamberg 2-3, Bergh 2-5, Menning 1-4, Mitchell 3-5), Dordt College 8-15 (Sumner 4-5, Knoblauch 0-1, Terpstra 2-3, O'Donnell 0-1, Wolterstorff 0-2, Feenstra 2-3). Rebounds -- DWU 29 (Bamberg 11), Dordt College (Terpstra 7). Assists -- DWU 12 (Mitchell 4), Dordt College 11 (Rindels 6). Total fouls -- DWU 17, Dordt College 18. Fouled out -- DWU 1 (Mitchell), Dordt College none. Technical fouls DWU none, Dordt College none
