Viterbo men sink Knights

By PAUL BOWE

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- The Martin Luther College men's basketball team fell victim to a hot-shooting Viterbo University team and fell, 90-54, Wednesday night.

Led by senior guard Joel Schwartz, MLC jumped out to an early 16-8 lead six minutes into the first half, but watched the lead quickly evaporate. Viterbo overpowered the Knights down low and sank five 3-pointers from around the arc to go on a 48-13 tear. When the dust had settled after a 3-pointer by Viterbo's Tim Porterfield to end the half, MLC found themselves nailed to a 56-29 deficit upon which they would not gain ground.

"We knew they were a good team; they have some real strong physical players as well as some good shooters, but we were more concerned about what we were going to do. For the first seven or eight minutes of the game we were doing what we wanted to," MLC coach James Unke said. "I don't know how we could go from a lead and playing pretty smart basketball to just giving it up, and that's something we'll have to work through."

Viterbo shot a blistering 65.6 percent from the field in the first half, including an impressive 71.4 percent from behind the arc. The V-Hawks were led by Porterfield, who came off the bench to score a game-high 21 points, 12 of which were from behind the arc.

"Our first half we shot pretty well and rebounded pretty well, but our defense was terrible," Unke said.

The lone bright spot for MLC was the return of NAIA All-American forward Tom Engelbrecht, who played nine minutes for the Knights, adding four points and buried an early three-pointer.

"Tom playing makes a difference. Hopefully he'll come back to play a little bit more each game, and he'll eventually be effective as he's always been," Unke said. "He obviously makes us a better team, but we as a team need to concentrate for 40 minutes, and when we went brain-dead, the game was pretty much over."

The Knights (0-8) play Saturday against Northwestern.

"I told the guys that, in conference play, we're 0-0, and we just have to come out and play that way, and we can't have lapses," Unke said. "We have to be able to play even and on top, and then we'll be all right."

Schwartz led the Knights with 15 points.