Box Score The Keene State College men's basketball team dropped an 88-69 non-conference game to number 11 ranked Worcester Polytechnic Institute on a snowy Saturday afternoon in Worcester.
The Owls fall to 2-6, seeing their two game win streak snapped. The Engineers improve to 9-1 on the season
Keene State was led on offense by sophomore Tre' Tipton (Stamford, CT) who scored a team-high 20 points. Senior guard Jim Hepple scored a career-high 15 points on 7-13 shooting. Sophomore big man Nate Howard (Cheshire, CT) came a point away from another double-double, scoring 9 points and pulling down 12 boards.
The Owls fought hard to prevent the Engineers from running away with the game early. Tipton put the offense on his back for the early portion of the first half, scoring six straight points for the Owls to keep the deficit to within 10 for the early portion of the first half.
A quick 19-5 run by the Engineers saw the Owls facing a 41-16 deficit with 6:05 remaining.
Looking to counter the run, the Owls briefly caught fire and went on one of their own, going on a 14-2 run spanning all the way to 2:10 left in the first half.
Heading to the locker room the Owls trailed 49-35, but shot a respectable 44% from the floor. Tipton had 11 points at the half and junior Tom Doyle (Wallingford, Conn.) had 8.
A quick 7-4 run coming out of the half capped by a Hepple layup nearly cut the gap to single digits, but the lead again proved to be insurmountable.
Keene State made it close a few more times over the course of the half, pulling within 13 on two separate occasions. Once on a Tipton jump shot with 8:42 remaining, and the other on a nice slashing layup by freshman Matt Sherlock (Melrose, MA), but the Engineers eventually pulled away with the win.
The Owls won the battle on the boards (44-39) and nearly doubled WPI on the offensive glass (18-10), but poor shooting from deep (5-18, 28%) and from the free throw line (10-19, 53%) hurt their comeback attempts.
The Owls are off for the rest of 2013, with their next game being played at home in Spaulding Gym January 5th against Castleton State.
WPI is also off for the rest of the year, returning to the court on the road to take on Becker College January 3rd.
