The win improves Carroll to 11-1 overall, 5-0 in the MWC while Monmouth falls to 4-7 overall, 0-6 in league play.
“I thought we had a really good first half but for a four or five minute stretch in the second-half, we played lackadaisical,” said head coach David Schultz, who picked up his 50th victory at the Pioneer helm. “Overall we had good energy and ball movement and defended the perimeter fairly well to open the lead.”
The Pioneers jumped out to a 51-35 halftime lead after shooting 69.0% from the field in the opening 20-minutes. Carroll led by as many 22 points early in the second half but Monmouth chipped away at the lead and pulled to within nine points at 77-68 with 5:29 remaining in the game. Junior Buck Colomy then responded with a Pioneer three-pointer to push the lead back to double-digits for the remainder of the game.
With several starters on the bench with foul trouble in the first half, including Scheper, Drury and junior Paul Toshner, who finished with 13 points, head coach David Schultz received great production from his reserves. Schultz praised the play of junior Adam Ligocki, sophomore Keith Johnson and freshmen Trevor Stratton and Wes Ladwig. “Those guys did a great job, especially in the first half,” said Schultz. The group combined to score 22 points in the first half.
Scheper also pulled down a team-high eight rebounds while Drury added a game-high nine assists and five rebounds.
The Pioneers return to action Wednesday night when they travel to Lawrence University for a 7:30 p.m. tip-off. Lawrence is the two-time defending league champions and are currently ranked #6 in the latest D3hoops.com poll.