by Erin Bontrager
On Friday, January 7, the Butler Bulldogs stunned the Cleveland State Vikings at Hinkle Field house. This game left the Bulldogs with a share of second place in the conference and provided the only loss for the Vikings.
January 4, Milwaukee crushed Butler in an amazing victory, beating them by 24 points. Milwaukee is one of the worst teams in the Horizon Conference, Butler should have been able to beat them with ease. With Butler losing to one of the worst teams in the Horizon Conference, you would think that Cleveland State would crush the Bulldogs, the opposite soon turned up.
Not even 5 minutes into the game, the Bulldogs jumped on the Vikings, to get a six point lead. Cleveland State could not guard Butler, and Butler worked a zone on Cleveland State. “I thought we did a really nice job of defending as a team and attacking as a team. You have to handle their initial wave in order to attack them appropriately, and I thought our guards did a great job of that and our bigs did a great job of finishing.” As the first half ended, 42-23 was the score, with Butler in the lead.
Sophomore Andrew Smith came out with an aggressive attitude in the second half, he scored 17 of his 22 points, and grabbed 6 of his 10 rebounds, all in the second half. “(Cleveland State’s) bigs helped out a lot and our guards did a really good job of penetrating, and they got me the ball a lot. I was able to get some offensive rebounds and make some shots,” commented Smith, after the game. Vikings senior, Norris Cole led the team with 26 points and 10 rebounds. He had the most points in the game, but missed some free throws. Cole had little help from his teammates.
The game finished with a Bulldog victory, 79-56. Cleveland State never got within 17 points of Butler in the last 20 minutes and Butler never led by less than 20 points in the final ten minutes of the game.
The Butler Bulldogs proved they worked hard to win the game, but the Cleveland State Vikings showed that they were not ready to win the game.
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