Winning a basketball game in Springfield, Ohio has been a tough task for Wabash College throughout the years. Wednesday night was no exception as the Little Giants lost to Wittenberg University 76-62.
 
Wabash (19-5, 13-4 NCAC) was 3-22 in games at Wittenberg and had not won on the road against the Tigers (19-5, 13-4) since 2014. The Little Giants claimed an early 6-5 lead in Wednesday night's game on a Connor Rotterman three-pointer just over three minutes into the contest. Wittenberg responded with a free throw to tie the game at 6-6. That started a 6-0 run for the Tigers that gave the home team the lead it would never relinquish.
 
The Little Giants cut the Wittenberg lead to 11-9 on a three-point basket from Colten Garland with 12:39 remaining in the first half. Landon Martin, who scored the final five points of the early Wittenberg run, added five more of his game-total 12 points to push the Tigers' advantage to seven at 16-9. Harrison Hallstrom cut the lead to 16-11 with a layup before Ben Stachowski made it a two-point game with a three-point basket with 8:38 left in the half.
 
Wittenberg answered with a 7-0 run to push the lead to nine points. Wabash once again trimmed the lead to two possessions with a tip-in rebound basket from Logan White and a three-pointer from Alex Eberhard. The lead remained at four points after a basket by the Tigers and a pair of free throws from Wabash sophomore guard Jack Davidson. Davidson entered the game with a streak of 89 consecutive free throws made and finished 3-for-3 from the line for the game. He is two made free throws away from tying the all-time NCAA record of 94 held by Paul Cluxton from Division II's Northern Kentucky University. Davidson finished the game with 10 points.
 
Tyler Watson cut the lead to two points with 2:22 left in the half with a free throw, but Wittenberg scored back-to-back three-point baskets to push the lead back up to eight points. Watson, who led Wabash in scoring with 13 points coming off the bench, scored a three-point basket to draw Wabash to within five points with less than a minute remaining in the period before Wittenberg closed out the half with free throws to hold a 39-30 lead.
 
Eberhard opened the second half with a three-pointer for Wabash to trim the Tigers' advantage to six points prior to a 6-0 run that gave Wittenberg a double-digit lead it would maintain the remainder of the game.
 
Wittenberg shot 27-of-61 from the field for 44.3 percent while limiting the Little Giants to 22-of-64 shooting for 34.4 percent overall. Wabash finished 8-of-27 from three-point range (29.6 percent) while the host Tigers scored on 10-of-24 three-point tries (41.7 percent). Five Wittenberg players scored in double figures, led by Jordan Pumroy with 16 points. Mitchell Balser scored 14 points, while James Johnson and Martin each added 12 points. Jake Bertemes chipped in 11 points.
 
The loss dropped Wabash into a tie for second place in the North Coast Athletic Conference standings with Wittenberg. The Tigers have the advantage in the tiebreaker for conference tournament seeding by virtue of a sweep of Allegheny earlier in the season. Wabash split with Gators and would earn the third seed in next week's tournament should the standings remain unchanged after the final regular season games this Saturday.
 
Wabash will end the regular season at home Saturday at 2 p.m. against Oberlin College before preparing to host a quarterfinal round game of the NCAC Tournament on Tuesday, February 19. The Little Giants will honor seniors Logan White and Stachowski prior to the opening tip on Saturday.