Western men’s basketball suffered a tough loss to the Western Oregon University Wolves, falling 78-58, on Saturday, Jan. 16 at the Whatcom Pavilion. The Vikings fall to 10-7 overall and 4-4 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. The Wolves took the lead early in the first half, scoring in the opening 20 seconds. The Vikings struggled to get points on the board, with their first points coming from a foul, four minutes into the game. The Vikings tied the game twice in the first half but were only able to hold the lead once during the game, two minutes before half. The Wolves stole it back just 23 seconds later, ending the half up by one point. At the start of the second half, the Wolves went on a 20-4 point run, increasing the margin. The Vikings came back within nine points thanks to senior guard Ricardo Maxwell who led the team with 17 points. The Wolves continued to increase their lead and drew fouls to secure points. Other team leaders included freshman forward Trey Drechsel who had 16 points as well as a game high eight rebounds. Junior forward Jeffery Parker, scored nine points and corralled five rebounds. The Vikings only shot 40.4 percent from the field and were only 30.4 percent on three pointers. The Wolves shot 48.2 percent from the field and 45.4 percent from the three pointer line. “I really just wanted to give them a big challenge, our whole team did. Because they are the 11th [ranked team] in the nation, we really wanted to get a win, but we fell short tonight,” Parker said. Vikings Head Coach Tony Dominguez said that this was a tough game but his team will bounce back from it. “We had a rough evening, as individuals and as a group, we did not play well,” Dominguez said. “But we will do well, we will rally and be where we want to be at the end of the year.” The Vikings’ next three games will all be on the road, beginning with Northwest Nazarene University at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 21. Then Central Washington University at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 23, which will be televised by Root Sports. The last road game in the series will be at Simon Fraser University at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 26.
