A tough shooting day against an aggressive Rose-Hulman defense led to the first loss of the season for the Wabash basketball team Sunday afternoon at Chadwick Court, 57-47.
 
The Little Giants hit 17-of-50 overall attempts, including a season-low 2-of-8 from the three-point arc. After trailing by as many as 11 points in the opening minutes of the second half, Wabash cut the Fightin' Engineers' lead to a single-possession game on three different occasions in the closing minutes of the game but were never able to get closer than two points.
 
"I thought Rose played really well defensively today and that's their trademark," Wabash head coach Kyle Brumett said. "Their former coach (Jim Shaw) always done a great job with that and (current coach) Rusty (Loyd) has continued the tough man-to-man defense. They had some really good individual defenders that probably were overshadowed in the past, but Tyler Duffy gave Kyle (Aiton) fits today. I've seen that before. Duffy has given other players fits. I probably didn't do enough things to help Kyle figure out other options, which is a lesson that we all have to learn at times as a team.
 
"Sometimes you can't learn those lessons while you're winning. We've tried to learn through our first three games and we've done a pretty good job of being diligent about that. There are just some times that you have to learn some tough lessons. These results aren't what anyone wants, but at some point we will learn how to win these close games."
 
The Little Giants took early 2-0 and 4-2 lead thanks to a jumper by Kasey Oetting and a shot in the paint by Daniel Scofield, but baskets by Jimmy Miller and Matt Loesing evened the score each time. Wabash took a one-point edge on a basket by Daniel Purvlicis before Rose went on a 16-6 run over the next 11 minutes for a 21-12 advantage.
 
Marcus Kammrath cut into the nine-point lead with a layup with 2:43 left in the first period, followed by a triple by Austin Burton to cut the lead to four. The teams traded baskets before Jimmy Miller scored the final points of the half for a 26-21 Rose-Hulman lead.
 
Wabash dominated the pain in the opening period, outscoring Rose 16-8. The second half proved to be more even inside, while the visitors picked up their shooting touch over the final 20 minutes.
 
After shooting 11-of-31 in the opening period, Rose connected on 11-of-24 attempts in the final segment. Early baskets by Corey Povaleri and Wade Stallings along with a triple by Miller boosted the lead to 11. Kyle Aiton eventually brought the lead back to six with a pair of baskets toward the midway point of the game before a Kammrath tip-in basket made it a 39-35 contest. Oetting added a free threw for a three-point edge in favor of Rose.
The Engineers grabbed a seven-point edge a minute later, but one free throw by Kammrath a pair by Aiton on a technical foul drew Wabash to within four. Purvlicis added two more charity tosses with 4:08 left to play to make the score 45-43.
 
With the shot clock winding down, Duffy nailed the first of two key baskets in the closing minute to push the advantage back to four point. Miller added another basket for a six-point lead before Scofield answered with two free throws.
 
Duffy then drilled the back-breaker --- a three-point shot from well outside the arc with one second on the shot clock to put the game way in the final two minutes.
 
"Our team is learning so many new things," Brumett said. "I was happy with how our guys played through the game. We fought and we're proud of that. We just had some mental lapses at tough times, and probably even more than that we just could never get the offense going. We just didn't really play with any rhythm to the game. We didn't sustain any consistent positive offensive play."
 
Scofield, Purvlicis, and Burton each finished with eight points for the Little Giants (3-1). Kammrath added seven points and nine boards. Oetting added and Aiton added six apiece. Purvlicis grabbed nine rebounds to join Kammrath as the Wabash leaders in that category.
 
Loesing finished with 14 points, while Miller added 11 for Rose-Hulman (1-3).
 
Wabash begins its North Coast Athletic Conference portion of the schedule with a road game at Wittenberg Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.