By: Colton Steiner
BLUFFTON, Ohio - With just two games left in the regular season, the Bluffton Beavers wrapped up their season series against the Rose-Hulman Fightin' Engineers on Valentine's Day on Copeland Court. While the Beavers were able to keep it within reach for the first half, the threes were falling for the Fightin' Engineers as they cruised to a dominant 83-58 win to spoil the holiday. After the loss, Bluffton sits at 9-15 on the season, with a 7-10 mark in the HCAC, while Rose-Hulman improves to 15-9 overall and now sit at 12-5 in conference play.
JD Stokes (West Harrison, Ind. / Franklin County) and Nevin Robson (Kenton, Ohio / Hardin Northern) would get it started for the Beavers, after Stokes rolled in a layup and Robson drilled a triple as they would take a 5-3 lead two minutes in. Following layups from Stokes and WIlliam Layfield, Bluffton found themselves up 9-4 with 16 minutes left in the half. The shots would start falling for the visitors as a 10-0 rally allowed them to jump ahead 14-9 until Taron Longwood broke the drought with a lay in at the 11:12 mark of the first half. Rose-Hulman was all offense, as they outscored the Beavers 28-15 the rest of the half as they went into the break with a 42-26 lead on Bluffton.
Jaxon Foster (Lima, Ohio / Bath) would come out strong for the Beavers, scoring eight straight points, that included a pair of threes as they were able to cut the deficit to single digits, making it 42-34. That would be the closest Bluffton would get as the Fightin' Engineers would catch fire and not look back, as they would end up cruising to an 83-58 win over the Beavers.
Pacing Bluffton with a team-high 11 points was JD Stokes, with Jaxon Foster the only other player in double figures with 10. Nevin Robson would snag six boards, while adding eight points in the loss.
While the Beavers finished the game going 7-of-19 (36.8 percent) from deep, Rose-Hulman was finding the bottom of the net from behind the arc, hitting an impressive 56.7 percent (17-of-30) of their attempts. The Fightin' Engineers would also finish the contest going 30-of-61 (49.2 percent) from the floor, compared the Bluffton's 39.2 percent (20-of-51). The Beavers did manage to outscore Rose-Hulman in points in the paint with a 26-18 advantage, but the Fightin' Engineers held a 19-8 edge in second chance points, as well outscoring the Bluffton bench 39-22.
The Beavers will return home for the last time of the regular season as they play host to the Anderson Ravens on Wednesday, Feb. 18, with tipoff set for 7:30 p.m.
-Beavers-
