Scots Extend Home Win Streak to 36 in Victory Over Earlham

Randy Sistrunk skies over Nathan Beck of Earlham during the first half of Wooster's 75-59 victory.

WOOSTER, Ohio - The College of Wooster extended the longest active home winning streak in NCAA Division III men's basketball to 36 games and improved to 5-0 on the season with a 75-59 win over Earlham College in North Coast Athletic Conference action at Timken Gymnasium today.

The University of Chicago had owned the longest winning streak in Division III at 38 games until it lost 85-67 at home to Lake Forest College this past Tuesday. Among all NCAA affiliated institutions, Wooster's current streak only ranks behind the University of Utah, which has won 54-straight at home.

With the victory, the number-two ranked Scots also opened the year at 5-0 for the first time since the 1954-55 season when legendary coach E.M. "Mose" Hole's team won its first five.

The key run in Saturday's contest was when Wooster was able to turn a six-point lead (41-35) at the 13:05 mark of the second half into a 65-43 advantage less than eight minutes later. The Scots held their largest lead of 22 points on three occasions before settling for the 16-point margin of victory.

In the first half, it was close for the first five minutes of play, but then Wooster went on a 15-2 run to open up a 15-point lead with 8:18 left before Earlham cut the lead down to 37-28 at the half.

Seven Scots scored seven or more points led by the starting backcourt of senior Nate Gaubatz (Wooster, Ohio / Northwestern) and junior Antwyan Reynolds (Mansfield, Ohio / Mansfield Senior), who each scored 14 points and dished out four assists. In addition, Reynolds had a game-high four steals, which was just two less than the Quakers' entire total.

Other major contributors for Wooster included sophomores Matt Smith (Elida, Ohio / Elida) and Bryan Nelson (Kettering, Ohio / Kettering Fairmont), who added 12 and 10 points, respectively, with Nelson also grabbing a game-high seven rebounds.

Earlham sophomore Nathan Stoops had a game-high 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field, however, no other Quaker scored more than seven points.

Wooster, which is 1-0 in the NCAC and has not lost a conference contest since Jan. 4, 1999 - a stretch of 35 games, including NCAC Tournament contests - returns to action on Wednesday, Dec. 6, when it travels to Oberlin, Ohio, for a match-up against Oberlin College (2-3, 0-1 NCAC) at 7:30 p.m.