GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Justin Steigerwald scored 22 points, including a career-high four 3-pointers to lead the Tusculum College men's basketball team to a 76-70 South Atlantic Conference win over Newberry College Saturday afternoon at Pioneer Arena.
The Pioneers (5-4, 2-0 SAC) have won five of their last six games, while holding the league's top scoring offense 22 points below their seasonal average (92.3 ppg). TC is off to only the second 2-0 SAC start in program history since joining the league 1999. The only other 2-0 start was by the 2003-04 squad that won the SAC championship that season.
Steigerwald posts his second straight 20-point outing, coming one point shy of matching his career-best 23 markers from last Saturday's contest at Brevard. He finished the game shooting 8-of-13 from the floor, including 4-of-7 from beyond the arc, with five rebounds, four assists, two blocked shots and three steals.
Kevin Vest added 20 points and five assists, while Jordan Davidson tallied 17 points and hauled in a game-best eight rebounds in the victory. Tommy Klempin added 11 markers to go along with his seven rebounds.
Newberry's Dondray Walker led all scorers with 24 points, including 16 in the second half. Walker shot 4-of-5 from three-point territory, while accounting for three steals. Quayshun Hawkins added 10 points, while Savad Garner finished with eight points.
Tusculum scored the first 11 points of the game and took its largest lead of the game at 16-2 just 3:53 into the contest. During that spurt, TC connected on seven of its first eight shots, while Davidson scored six of his 17 points, during the run.
The Wolves (5-3, 1-1 SAC) would chip away at the deficit and with TC leading 22-12 at the 9:23 mark of the half, Newberry went on a 12-1 run over the next three minutes and moved ahead 24-23 on Walker's jumper with 6:21 left in the period.
The Wolves would increase their lead to 35-29 late in the half, but Tusculum would close out the stanza with a 7-2 run, capped off by Vest fast-break lay-up as Newberry led 37-36 at the intermission.
The lead would bounce back and forth early at the start of the second half with Newberry taking a 45-43 lead with 14:15 left in the contest.
Tusculum scored nine unanswered points over a span of 1:39, finished off by a three-pointer by Vest as TC led 52-45 with 12:36 left on the scoreboard, a lead they would no relinquish the rest of the evening.
The Tusculum lead remained in single-digits for the remainder of the game, leading by as many as nine points at 63-54 on a driving lay-up by Davidson with 6:38 remaining. Newberry got as close at 66-64 with 3:37 left following two free throws by Garner.
But Tusculum responded with six straight points, while Newberry missed its next five shots as the Pioneers stretch the lead to 72-64 with 59 seconds remaining. The Wolves got a Walker trey with 23 seconds left, but the Pioneers got a pair of free throws each by Vest and Steigerwald down the stretch to put the game away.
"I thought we did a nice job of trying to take away what they wanted to do offensively, for the most part," said Tusculum head coach Michael Jones. "We made way to many turnovers (24), but that's what Newberry does. They are well coached and they made some adjustments in the first half that made things difficult for us. Our team needs to understand what our identity is and we need to live up to that identity. I'm proud of how we battled, but we have to continue to work to improve."
Tusculum out-rebounded the Wolves by a 37-27 margin, including 23-11 in the second half. TC shot 47.3 percent from the floor, while Newberry fired 42 percent, including 10-of-26 in the second half (38.5%). TC out-scored Newberry 40-22 in the paint, while the Wolves won the bench points battle, 30-6.
The Pioneers will focus on exams next week, before returning to action on Dec. 19 when they host Winston-Salem State University for a 6 p.m. contest at Pioneer Arena.
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