Oberlin, Ohio – The Oberlin men's basketball team won its third straight game, defeating the Wabash College Little Giants 59-50 on Saturday afternoon at Philips Gym.
 
The Yeomen are off to one of their best starts in program history, moving to 6-2 overall and 2-1 in the NCAC. The Little Giants dropped to 4-3 and 0-2 in league play.
 
Senior center Randy Ollie led the charge, finishing with 15 points and nine rebounds. The 6-foot-10 Evanston, Illinois, native ended the game with an emphatic two-handed dunk.
 
Junior guard Jack Poyle added 13 points, while classmate and backcourt buddy Nathan Cohen added 10 to complete a trio of double-digit point producers for the Yeomen. Matt Walker contributed a career-high 11 rebounds to accompany his nine points.
 
It was a slow start for Oberlin as the Little Giants led 9-2 in the early going. However, the Yeomen would settle in and take their first lead of the game with 10:50 left in the opening half as a jumper from Walker made it 15-14.
 
Wabash led 27-21 with 1:48 remaining in the frame, but the period would end with an 8-0 Yeomen run that was capped off with a 3-pointer from rookie Eli Silverman-Lloyd as the horn sounded to give Oberlin a 29-27 cushion at the break.
 
It was nip-and-tuck throughout the second half as no more than four points separated the two teams through the first 10 minutes of the stanza. A 9-0 Oberlin spurt gave them some breathing room, opening up the largest lead of the game, 47-36, with six minutes left to play.
 
However, the Little Giants lived up to their motto of "Wabash Always Fights", battling back with a 10-0 run of their own to get within one.
 
A jump-hook in the paint from Ollie with 90 seconds to go would end a four-and-half minute scoring draught by the Yeomen to put them up 49-46. He would then follow with another jumper and two free throws to push the lead back out to seven, helping the Yeomen preserve the win.
 
Both teams shot slightly over 35-percent from the floor with Oberlin making 21-of-59 shots. The Little Giants connected on 22-of-62 of their attempts. They also both struggled from long range as Oberlin was 4-of-22 (18.2%) from beyond the arc with the Little Giants connecting on just 2-of-11 (18.2%) triple-tries.
 
The Yeomen made the Little Giants pay at the charity stripe, dialing in on 13-of-16 freebies for an 81.3-percent success rate. Wabash went just 4-of-10 at the line.
 
The Yeomen will be back in action on Wednesday night when they travel to Denison University for a 7:30 p.m. battle. Oberlin's next home game in Philips Gym is over a month away on January 9 against Wooster.