Photo by Luke Zayas/Backwards Hat Media
WALLA WALLA, Washington — The defining run of the second half on Thursday night got its start in the closing minutes of the first.
Down by eight on the road at Whitman, Hudson Johnson and his UMHB teammates came out of the five-minute media timeout ready to step up. Johnson scored the next seven points and The Cru held the Blues to just one made field goal over those final five minutes of the opening period.
It cut the deficit to 41-37 at the intermission. But more importantly, it provided key momentum heading into halftime. Momentum that Sam Patterson’s squad carried with them out of the break and used to engineer a 21-4 run over a 6 1/2 minute stretch between the 18:57 and 12:21 marks, flipping the contest in UMHB’s favor.
The Cru took control from that point on, outscoring Whitman, 53-34, in the second half of a 90-75 win inside the Sherwood Athletic Center. After dropping its first two road games of the season by single-digits, UMHB at last broke through with a win away from home, improving to 3-3 overall.
“We really tried to turn up the heat on the ball pressure and be aware off the ball,” Patterson said postgame of the defensive effort. “It was a really strong second half. We played the way we want to play defensively. That was good to see.”
The effects of that defensive intensity showed up clearly in the turnover department, where The Cru forced Whitman into a season-high 22 turnovers, the Blues’ most in a game since Jan. 18, 2022. Off those 22 takeaways, Patterson’s team put up 29 points, with lock-down defense translating into efficient offense on a night in which they averaged 1.25 points per possession.
“At halftime, the message was to be aggressive on the ball,” Patterson added. “To force 22 turnovers and not press and trap—it’s not like we’re playing a chaotic defense—I think that goes to show that it was all a team defensive effort there in the second half.”
The consistency on the defensive end helped widen the gap down the stretch, as UMHB limited Whitman to just four made field goals over the game’s last 10 minutes. That included holding the Blues without a made shot a five-minute span late in the contest, after Johnson connected on his fourth 3-pointer of the evening for an 81-68 lead. While the Blues made four trips to the free throw line over the next five minutes, they also missed five straight field-goal attempts, opening the door to a 16-point UMHB advantage. The Cru went up by 16 two separate times over the final six minutes, and led by double figures for the final seven.
The effort level, particularly in the game’s latter stages, was made more noteworthy by the long travel it took UMHB to get to Walla Walla, a rural city in southeastern Washington about four hours from Seattle. When a team goes over 1,800 miles away from home to a different time zone and unfamiliar environment, coaches often worry about fatigue setting in quicker due to the travel or a lack of rhythm because of the setting.
But Patterson didn’t need to worry about either of those things on Thursday night. UMHB’s maturity shone through, and it kept The Cru centered through the flow of the game, whether they were trailing in the first half or building a double-digit lead in the second.
“You never know what to expect when you have flight delays like we had, or long layovers, or the weather isn’t that nice when you land,” Patterson said afterwards. “The maturity of this team to handle themselves really showed tonight. We have a veteran group, and we have guys that care about winning and playing for each other. I have full confidence in the leadership of this team to handle their business on the road.”
It took little time for The Cru to display that in the opening half, as fellow seniors Johnson and Zach Engels connected on back-to-back 3s as part of a game-opening 8-0 run sparked by an offensive rebound putback from grad student Connor Zamiara on UMHB’s first possession.
They led by as many as nine points before Whitman climbed back into it behind the scoring prowess of 6’6 junior guard Djordje Lazarevic, creating the back-and-forth first half that ultimately led to the Blues’ four-point lead at the intermission. Lazarevic scored eight straight points midway through the first 10 minutes, with his second 3-pointer pushing Whitman in front, 18-17, for a lead that held until Elijah Lawrence tied the score with 17:51 in the second half.
Even still, after going from a 10-1 lead to trailing the Blues just over four minutes later, the Crusaders kept it tight. They cut the deficit back to a single point three different times in the first half.
“We played solid,” Patterson noted of the first half. “Some of their guys made some shots that we were okay with them making, just playing the numbers game and understanding what we’re giving up and what we’re trying to take away. I don’t think our guys ever let that get them rattled or take them away from executing the gameplan.”
UMHB notably won the rebounding battle, 31-28, becoming the first Whitman opponent to do so this season. The Blues came into the contest with a rebounding margin of +6.0, having out-rebounded three of their first five opponents—Walla Walla, Cal Lutheran, and Caltech—by double-digits. Yet The Cru continuously fought on the boards, and it paid off, producing 15 offensive rebounds that then turned into 16 second-chance points. They also out-rebounded the Blues by seven in the second half alone.
“To me, offensive rebounding is just about doing your job and going with effort,” Patterson said. “Credit Zach Engels, Grant Jessen, Connor [Zamiara], Josiah [Wray]; the guys just do their job. They understand their job is to rebound when a shot goes up, and you’re not going to get a rebound every time you go, but you definitely can’t get one if you don’t go. That’s the mentality. It creates those extra possessions, and those easy kick-out 3s. That’s what we practice.”
The winning plays came from across the board on Thursday night, with sizable contributions from the starting five of Engels, Johnson, Lawrence, Zamiara, and Zach May, along with nine Crusaders who saw action off the bench. 11 different players contributed to the 90-point output in the scoring column, including senior guard Josh Pearre, who like many off the bench, impacted the game in multiple ways in addition to converting on his lone shot, which pushed the lead to 69-59 with 10 minutes left.
“We talk about it all the time, you never know when your number is going to be called,” Patterson said. “We just want to make sure we’re always ready. And he came in during the second half and extended the lead for us with his effort and his energy. I was really proud of JP for the way that he came in when his number was called.”
That depth will be needed again on Saturday, as The Cru’s time in the Pacific Northwest continues with a visit to 25th-ranked Whitworth at 4 p.m. PT (6 p.m. CT) in Spokane. Whitworth is off to a 4-0 start and will be playing its first game since Nov. 22.
“I talked about it at scout today. The kind of schedule we put together is preparing us for February and March,” Patterson noted. “These are two really high-quality opponents on the road in true road environments.”
In addition to Engels’ 19 points and Johnson’s 18, Grant Jessen added 13 points off the bench in a new season-high for the junior. Zamiara and Josiah Wray each added seven, with Wray also grabbing five rebounds.
Milos Sarenac led Whitman’s scoring effort, with 18 while shooting 5-of-10 from the field and 6-of-7 at the free throw line. Lazarevic added 16 more, along with four assists.
