Bruins Inaugurate ’07 With Win Over Missionaries

George Fox (6-5, NWC 2-1) hosts 6th-ranked and unbeaten (12-0) Whitworth College and Whitman (3-8, NWC 0-3) visits Linfield College Saturday in conference games at 6:00 PM, following women’s games at 4:00 PM.

Phil Heu-Weller’s game-high 19 points, 14 in the second half led the Bruins over the Missionaries 77-63.

NEWBERG - Led by Phil Heu-Weller’s game-high 19 points, 14 in the second half, the George Fox University Bruins inaugurated the 2007 portion of their schedule with a 77-63 win over the Whitman College Missionaries in Northwest Conference men’s basketball action Friday night at the Wheeler Sports Center’s Miller Gym.

There were four ties and four lead changes in the first ten minutes of the game, with neither team leading by more than four during that time.

The Bruins went ahead 19-18 on a three-pointer by Brady Strutz with 10:36 left and led throughout the remainder of the period, taking their largest lead of eight points at 39-31 with 31 seconds left after back-to-back treys by Brent Satern and Heu-Weller.

Garth Brandal’s three at the buzzer pulled the Missionaries within 39-34 at intermission.

With Heu-Weller hitting 5-7 from the field in the second half, the Bruins began to pull away. A steal and layup by Chris Parker and a three by Heu-Weller gave George Fox a double-digit lead of 55-44 with 12:49 to play and sparked a 20-4 run over a seven-minute span that put the game out of reach.

Grant Vahalla’s layup with 6:26 to go gave the Bruins their biggest lead of 22 points at 70-48.

Joining Heu-Weller, who sank five three-pointers, in the scoring parade for the Bruins were Parker with 17 and Satern with 15, 11 in the first half.

Strutz and Mark Metzler had six rebounds apiece, leading the Bruins to a 34-32 advantage against the league’s best rebounding team with an average margin of +8.8.

Strutz and Satern had seven assists each.

Chris Faidley topped the Missionaries with 17 points, Jordan Wheeler had 11 off the bench, and Kyle Born, the NWC’s leading scorer with a 23.6 average, was limited to 10 points after scoring a Whitman-record and conference record-tying 53 at the University of Redlands Wednesday.

Born also had eight rebounds, and Ian Warner passed out three assists.

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