Track and Field season doesn’t officially begin at Denison University until Jan 22, 2005. That didn’t stop the Big Red men’s basketball team from lacing up their sneakers and keeping pace with the furious “fun-n-gun” style of play adopted by their opponents, Marietta College.
The Pioneers, fresh off a 133-100 route against Kenyon on Saturday, pushed the Big Red to the limit with their trapping defense and quick-trigger offense resulting in a 121-102 victory for Denison. Not only did Denison walk away with a hard-fought win, they shattered a few school records in the process.
The 121 total points broke the old single-game record of 113 points set in 1993-94 against Washington & Jefferson. The Big Red shot a blistering 69 percent from the field hitting 45-of-65 shots. The 45 field goals made and the field goal percentage was also new single-game records.
Denison made a living off running out off Marietta misses, breaking their press and converting easy lay-ups. The Big Red scored 80 of their 121 points in the paint and they outrebounded the Pioneers 58-29. A product of the chaos that Marietta caused with their swarming defense was the 31 turnovers attributed to the Big Red. Denison countered those miscues with 26 assists.
Denison held a 52-49 advantage at the half. Marietta tied the game 67-67 with 14:11 left but Denison answered with a 10-2 run giving them a 10 point lead with just over 10 minutes to play.
Junior Robb Hern (Madeira, Ohio/Madeira) came off the bench to lead the Big Red with 27 points and 11 rebounds. In all, six Denison players reached double-figures in the scoring department. Senior Chris Hull (Winnetka, Ill./New Trier) checked in with 17 points and eight rebounds. Sophomore Dan Hodgkinson (Lake Forest, Ill./Lake Forest) scored 16 and had seven boards. Sophomore guard Tony Julian (Dublin, Ohio/Coffman) scored 15 points and snagged eight rebounds while Dan Izzo (St. Charles, Ill./East) and Clint Shepherd (Hebron, Ohio/Lakewood) each checked in with 13 and 12 points, respectively.
Marietta attempted 62 three-pointer’s and hit 17 of them. In all, they finished 35-of-98 from the field (35.7 %). Chad Sponseller led the Pioneers with 28 points off 10-of-20 shooting.
Denison improves to 2-3 on the season while Marietta falls to 1-4 overall.