Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Otterbein University men's basketball team split a pair of non-conference games at the Bill Sudeck Holiday Tournament, hosted Dec. 29 and 30 by Case Western Reserve University.

The Cardinals, now 3-9 on the season, defeated Wheaton College (Ill.) by a score of 60-56 on day one before losing a hard-fought 91-83 contest with the host Spartans in the championship game.

Day 1

Points were at a premium throughout the first half, with Otterbein holding an 18-12 lead before Wheaton (3-7) finished the final 8:57 on a 14-2 run to take a six-point lead entering intermission.

The game remained a defensive battle as the second half progressed, with the Thunder standing on top, 37-30, with 11:02 left to play in the contest. The Cards continued to hang tough, going on a 15-6 run spanning the next five minutes to seize a 43-40 lead.

Otterbein clung to a 50-49 advantage after a Wheaton layup with 2:47 to play, but solid free-throw shooting and a few defensive stops helped the Cards emerge down the stretch. Otterbein scored its final 12 points at the charity stripe.

Junior guard Jake Phillis paced the Cardinals with a game-high 20 points, going just 4 of 11 from the field but connecting on all 10 of his free throws. Both teams shot 33 percent from the floor but Otterbein finished with a dominant 53-33 rebounding margin, 14 of them coming from junior Grant Fenner. He just missed a double-double with nine points.

Day 2

Case Western opened the title game on a quick 9-0 run before later finding themselves up 21-11 with 11:23 to go in the first half. Otterbein eventually settled in, outscoring the Spartans 15-8 over the next six minutes to close within a possession, 29-26, on a corner trifecta from Fenner.

Case Western (6-3) took a slim 37-35 lead into halftime, but immediately put some pressure back on Otterbein to begin the second half by opening on a 7-0 run, running the lead to 44-35.

The Cards later faced a 12-point deficit, 59-47, but stayed the course and embarked on a 12-3 scoring spurt to bring the game back within a possession, 62-59. Both sides traded punches down the stretch and Otterbein trailed by only two, 80-78, after a layup from Bryan Mackenzie with 2:33 on the game clock.

The Spartans answered with a layup on the other end and Otterbein was ultimately forced to play the foul game in the closing seconds, coming up just short to a hot Case Western team that scored 209 combined points over the two days.

Phillis, who was selected to the All-Tournament Team, led Otterbein again with 19 points despite missing a chunk of time in the first half due to foul trouble. Fenner scored 17, with 15 coming in the first half before missing most of the second due to a slight injury. Mackenzie tallied 16 points, eight rebounds and made all eight of his free-throw attempts as the Cards were a solid 26 of 31 as a team at the line.

Junior Matt Hughes, seeing his first action on the trip after missing the past five games, played well with 12 points in 18 minutes off the bench against Case Western.

Matt Clark dropped a game-best 21 points for CWRU, which shot 48 percent as a group and converted multiple old-fashioned three-point plays throughout.

Otterbein will be back in action on Saturday, Jan. 9 with a conference road game at Heidelberg University. Start time will be 2 p.m.