Wabash outscored visiting Franklin College 20-9 in a five stretch in the second half on the way to a 92-76 victory to close out the calendar year for the Little Giants' basketball team.
 
Wabash led from the start, but needed the late scoring run to extend its lead from 68-60 to 88-69 with 2:01 left to play. Freshman Johnny Jager provided much of the scoring punch for the Little Giants, tallying 18 points in the final period. He led Wabash with 22 points and handed out eight assists, as well.

The Little Giants took an early 9-2 lead before Franklin (1-9) rallied to tie the game at 14-14. First-year player Duncan Roy gave Wabash the lead for good, drilling a long-range shot to score three of his season-best 19 points. The Grizzlies kept the game close thanks to junior Aaron Mann, who scored 33 of Franklin's 76 points. He notched 20 points in the first half, accounting for most of Franklin's 34 points.

Leading 43-34 at the break, Wabash stretched its advantage to 15 near the midway point of the period. Franklin produced one final rally, trimming the lead to three points on a three-point play by Mann with 9:05 remaining in the contest.

Wabash refused to allow the Grizzlies to get any closer. Jager scored 12 of his 22 points over a seven-minute span after Franklin drew within three. Evan Frank added six points during that time frame in addition to grabbing four of his nine rebounds. Two of his boards came on the offensive end and led to a three-pointer by Austin Burton and a tip-in basket for Frank for two of his eight points.

The Little Giants played for the first time in ten days. The players spent last week away from their normal routine during finals week after suffering a home loss to Wooster.

"It's hard here (at Wabash)," head coach Kyle Brumett said. "Guys needed to focus on finals, so we weren't in the gym a lot as a team last week. When we were, the players worked hard and really concentrated on things we have to get better at. We had five freshmen on the floor together a lot tonight. We've got to keep getting better and I've got to keep working as a coach to find out what works best with this team. I think we found some stuff today. Now we get a break to enjoy the holidays. Then we come back and keep working on this stuff to try and get on a little bit of a roll."

Senior Daniel Purvlicis sparked the early Wabash lead in the first period. He scored 15 of his 17 points in the first half. Ben Stachowski came off the bench to score 11 points for the Little Giants (6-4).

Wabash will take more time off over the holidays before returning to the North Coast Athletic Conference portion of its schedule with a pair of games at Hiram (January 3) and Allegheny (January 4).