January 21, 2010

Fort Hays State Men Edge Emporia State, 69-65

By David Boyce

EMPORIA, Kan. -- On paper, Fort Hays State, ranked No. 5 in NCAA Division II, should have had an easy game against the below .500 Emporia State Hornets.

But life on the road in the MIAA is never easy.

Fort Hays found that out Wednesday night in its 69-65 victory at White Auditorium. It was the Tigers' first victory at Emporia State since joining the MIAA in the 2006-07 season.

"Everybody plays so well at home," said Fort Hays junior Corbin Kuntzsch, who finished with 11 points. "For us to be 5-0 on the road is a great accomplishment.

"Emporia played really well tonight. We got their best shot. They are a good team. They've had some injuries early in the season that has hurt them. It seems like we are just able to win games when it gets close. You got to have mental toughness to win games in the last 5 minutes."

Fort Hays definitely needed clutch plays in the final 7 minutes to improve to 16-1 overall and 11-0 in the MIAA.

For the most part, Emporia State didn't look like a team that fell to 7-10 and 3-7, especially when the Hornets took a 50-49 lead on a free throw by junior Adam Holthaus with 7:26 left in the game.

Junior guard Dominique Jones got the Tigers rolling with a drive that led to a go-ahead layup. He followed that with a three-pointer, putting Fort Hays up 54-50.

After a layup by Holthaus, Fort Hays responded with a three-pointer from Tim Peintner to give the Tigers a 57-52 lead with five minutes left.

"It was really big," Fort Hays coach Mark Johnson said. "You look at last year. Tim might have been the best four-man down the stretch in the conference. He was a great finisher.

"I really appreciate his sacrifice, knowing we added new guys and didn't need to go to one guy. He got injured. He missed three or four games, and now he's coming back and he's not nearly 100 percent. You don't want that your senior year."

In the next 60 seconds, Jones drained two three-pointers that gave Fort Hays a 63-54 lead with four minutes left. He finished with a game-high 29.

Every time Emporia State made a small run like when it closed to 63-59 with 1:32 left, somebody stepped up for Fort Hays.

"I think playing a lot of these close games is going to help us the second part of conference season," Peintner said.

"It's really nice to get off to a good start in conference. Every year it looked like we were looking up from the bottom like last year when we started 1-3. It's nice to have this early cushion. But it just means we put ourselves in position for a great opportunity the second part of conference season. Hopefully, we can do something with it."

A layup by Kuntzsch with 1:10 left gave Fort Hays a 65-59 lead.

"They kind of shut our big guys down tonight, but that's the nice thing about our team. We have seven different guys that can be their night any night," Kuntzsch said. "Dom hit some big shots tonight that put us up and Tim hit a big three.

"That's what I like so much about being on this team. We play unselfish and we play together. If we can keep doing that we are going to play pretty good."

Early on Emporia State had some of that White Auditorium magic working. The Hornets jumped to a 10-3 lead and had control of the game.

Fort Hays responded like a top-10 team and scored the next 10 points for a 13-10 lead.

The Tigers increased their lead to 24-16, but were unable to pull completely away from Emporia State.

In fact, the Hornets showed a toughness that was missing in their last game, a 73-42 loss at Washburn on Saturday.

Against Fort Hays, the Hornets kept battling and closed to 27-25 and went into halftime trailing just 32-28.

"After the last game this definitely gives us a little more confidence," said Holthaus, who finished with 20 points. "Obviously, we are still not over the hump. If we were over the hump we might have been able to push through this one.

"It definitely feels better playing someone like that to that extent."

"The last game we played we were pretty embarrassed," Emporia State coach David Moe said. "A lot of people write you off. Your pride is hurt.

"We got to make sure we play with pride like this all the time. We got some games to do it."

To reach David Boyce, contributing writer for the MIAA, e-mail dboyce@themiaa.com.