Men's Basketball (14-11, 6-6) Downs Clark to Clinch Third Seed in NEWMAC Tourney

The Wheaton College men's basketball team went 1-1 last week, ultimately clinching the third seed in the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Tournament with an 84-80 victory over visiting Clark University on Saturday. The Lyons opened play with an 85-68 setback on Wednesday after holding close with host Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), which was receiving votes in the D3hoops.com national poll. Wheaton, which finished third in the league for its best regular season placement since 2004-05, will host its first postseason contest since 2006 when it takes on sixth-seeded Babson College on Wednesday. The NEWMAC Tournament semifinals and final occur over the weekend at WPI. The Lyons, who are the only squad in league history to advance to the semifinals nine times, would need to win the tournament to corral their initial NCAA Tournament bid.

Against the Engineers, Wheaton trailed by only seven points with a little more than seven minutes remaining before WPI pulled away. Sophomore Anthony Coppola (Watertown, MA/Watertown) shot 8-of-13 for 23 points to lead the Lyons, who went 9-of-20 from three-point range. Freshman Anthony Weeks (Fitchburg, MA/Worcester Academy) tallied 15 points behind a 3-of-4 showing from beyond the arc. Sophomore Ryan Sasso (Peabody, MA/Bishop Fenwick) added eight points.

Wheaton and Clark exchanged the lead 16 times in the second half alone, as Weeks' two freebies with 2:47 remaining put the Lyons on top to stay. Weeks shot 7-of-8 on free-throw tries, helping his team go 28-of-34, while finishing with 15 points and four assists. Coppola added 20 points, junior Jaxon Leo (Leesburg, VA/New Hampton School) shot 5-of-7 for 14 points, and Sasso tallied 14 points and a career-high-tying seven rebounds. In his final regular season home game, senior Nick Michel (Hyde Park, MA/Boston Latin School) totaled 12 points, six boards and two blocks in 19 minutes, while junior Ben Stehle (Newton, MA/Newton South) tacked on seven caroms.

Michel is now seventh in program history in career blocks (51), while Leo is tied for eighth (50). Coppola has 972 points in his 50-game career, as he sits one point shy of Scott Mahan '04 for 12th on Wheaton's all-time list. Coppola is seventh in program history in three-pointers (125). With 472 points this year, Coppola is the sixth Lyon with at least two 400-point seasons and is six points short of matching Mahan for the 10th-highest single-season total. Coppola joins Chris Sullivan '93, the program's all-time leading scorer, as just the second to record his second 400-point campaign as a sophomore.