McCorkle's 22 Sends Seniors Off on Winning Note

Saturday, February 19

Fort Wayne, Ind.

4:00 p.m.

Purdue Fort Wayne

North Dakota State

Trey McCorkle scores two of his season-high 22 points vs. NDSU on Saturday

McCorkle's 22 Sends Seniors Off on Winning Note

2/19/2011 7:24:16 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Fort Wayne, IN - On "Senior Night" it was a junior and sophomore leading the way as IPFW topped North Dakota State, 73-61 before a season-high record crowd of 4,059 at the Memorial Coliseum on Saturday afternoon.

Junior forward Trey McCorkle tossed in a season-high 22 and sophomore forward Frank Gaines added 18 as IPFW moved to 17-10 overall and 10-6 in conference play. The 17 wins is a program record for the Mastodons at the Division I level and 10 wins is the most for IPFW since joining The Summit League in the 2007-08 season.

The first half was a defensive struggle as neither team could get into a flow. A 3-pointer from senior Zach Plackemeier gave the 'Dons their first lead of the game at 9-7, at the 11:22 mark.

The half remained close until IPFW went on a 7-0 run over the final 2:57 of the period as Gaines tipped in a miss at the buzzer making it 26-19.

The Mastodons grew their lead to 15 early in the second half as McCorkle converted a feed from Gaines inside.

Senior Oleg Kovalov pushed that lead to 17 at the 7:30 mark with a triple from the top of the key.

McCorkle gave IPFW its largest lead of the game, 62-43 with a hook shot off the glass with 5:18 remaining and the 'Dons put it on cruise control for the win.

McCorkle was 8-8 from the field in scoring his 22. Gaines also had six boards, two assists and two blocks to go along with his 18 points. Senior Ben Botts finished with seven points, six rebounds and four assists. Plackemeier chipped in six points, six rebounds and seven assists.

Senior forward Michael Tveidt led the Bison (13-14, 7-10) with 13 points. Junior guard Drew Lundberg added 12.

The Mastodons outrebounded the Bison, 39-33 in the contest and hit on 45.0% of their shots compared to 37.7% from the floor for NDSU.

Seniors Oleg Kovalov, Ben Botts and Zach Plackemeier will lead IPFW on the road for their final two games of the regular season. IPFW will face Southern Utah at Centrum Arena on Thursday night and finish the campaign on Saturday at UMKC.

~Dons~