One word that Elon sophomore guard Jack Isenbarger likes to use to describe his play is “aggressive.”
Saturday night certainly showcased that, as the Zionsville, Ind., native scored a career-high 34 points to lead the Elon Phoenix to a crucial home victory over The Citadel Bulldogs 71-66 Saturday night in Alumni Gym. The win, coupled with UNC-Greensboro’s loss to Furman Saturday afternoon, put Elon in first place in the Southern Conference’s North Division by a half-game.
“It was a fun win,” Isenbarger said. “I like to attack, I guess, and take what the defense is giving us. Our guys did a great job of finding the open man. When I happened to be the open man, they found me and I knocked it down.”
After the Bulldogs got off to a fast start, a 14-5 run in the first 4:47 of play, a red-faced Phoenix head coach Matt Matheny called a timeout. From that point, Elon went on a 17-8 run over the next 8:05 to tie the game at 22 with 7:35 remaining in the second half.
“I felt like we needed a charge,” Matheny said. “I wasn’t mad. But we needed a charge, and we needed a change in the way we were playing. Citadel started the game aggressive and we didn’t. We wanted to make sure our players understood that.”
The Citadel went into halftime with a 32-31 lead after freshman guard Aston Moore hit a jumper with five seconds left in the first half. But Elon caught fire, going on an 18-6 run to take a 49-38 lead with 10:49 remaining in the game. Isenbarger had eleven points in that one stretch.
“Coach called a timeout early ‘cause we were struggling and I think we just didn’t have that sense of urgency that we started out with against (the College of) Charleston (Thursday night)," Isenbarger said. "We picked it up after he kind of got in our face and yelled at us and told us to pick it up and we did.”
Isenbarger shot six of eight from the field, three for four from behind the arc, in the second half for 20 points in the last 20 minutes of the game. He started his second straight game in the point guard position, replacing freshman guard Austin Hamilton, who has mononucleosis.
“Jack’s playing really well,” Matheny said. “When anybody goes out of the lineup, particularly playing the amount of minutes that Austin has, people have to step up. Jack’s put at a different position where he’s got the ball in his hands a lot. He played 47 minutes Thursday night, he played 34 minutes tonight, and he’s playing at a really high level. He’s a tough kid.”
The Phoenix was playing its second game in three nights. The first game was a marathon, double-overtime, back-and-forth affair against the College of Charleston Thursday that ended way past middle-schoolers’ bedtimes. But Matheny’s club kept playing.
“As the season goes on, the body starts breaking down a little bit, and you gotta use all the time you can in the training room, ice baths and any preparation you can for the next game,” Beaumont said. “Once you really get in the game, and you’re focused on what you’ve got to do and forget the pain and the injuries, breathing hard and stuff like that. Sometimes it’s hard to get loose and into the game, but little stuff like that will help.”
Elon sophomore forward Lucas Troutman had 14 points and eight rebounds and sophomore guard Sebastian Koch chipped in eight points, four rebounds and four assists. Isenbarger added five rebounds and four assists to his career-high night.
The Citadel were led by junior forward Mike Groselle, the SoCon’s leading scorer, who had 14 points and eight rebounds. Freshman guard Lawrence Miller led the Bulldogs with 15 points.
“(Groselle is) tough in an old-school kind of way, the way he uses angles well and post well,” Matheny said. “We used different guys on him to defend him with energy and we tried to make it where he didn’t get any free-lane stuff, which he’s great at getting.”
The Phoenix takes on Appalachian State University Monday night in a rematch of the Jan. 28 game in which the Mountaineers thoroughly dominated Elon on the way to a 81-66 victory in Boone.
“They definitely dug into us and really kind of ran the whole game when we were down 15, 17 for a while,” Beaumont said. “I think it left a bad taste in a lot of our teammates’ mouths. The momentum is a boost, a two-game winning streak, that’s really good, but more importantly remembering what they did last time. It’s nice though because sometimes over time, bad tastes in our mouth will fade and we’ll forget what happened. But now, it’s fresh in our heads - they did that last week, it’s time to do the same thing back to them.”
For more game photos, check out the album on Facebook.