GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Calvin University men's basketball team overcame a slow start with a dominant second half to defeat Adrian College 73-43 on Wednesday night at Van Noord Arena.
 
The win was the seventh in a row for the Knights and also marked the win number 100 as the Calvin head men's basketball coach for Bill Sall, who improved to 100-40 with the Knights in his six seasons.
 
Calvin (8-6, 3-0 MIAA) struggled to get anything going on the offensive end in the first half as Adrian (4-10, 2-1) raced out to a 15-3 lead over the first seven minutes.
 
Ty Horky (Manchester, Mich./Manchester/Kalamazoo College) helped the Knights get going on offense with six early points to keep Calvin in the game, but the Knights still trailed 26-14 heading into the final minutes of the first half.
 
The game changed with under two minutes to go before the break as the Knights finished the half on a 7-0 run, which included a three-pointer from Luka Ressler (Caledonia, Mich./Catholic Central) after Calvin had missed its first nine attempts from beyond the arc.
 
Still trailing 26-21 at the half, Calvin continued that momentum into the second half with a tremendous start on both ends. The Knights quickly took the lead on a three-pointer from Brady Ewing (Petoskey, Mich./Petoskey) to make the score 29-28 and never looked back.
 
After starting the game 0-9 from downtown, the Knights made their next seven attempts from distance, including their first six of the second half and finished the game 11-27 from three-point range.
 
In total, Calvin outscored the Bulldogs 59-17 over the final 22 minutes of action and held Adrian to 28.3 percent shooting for the game (including 20.0 percent in the second half).
 
Horky finished as the Knights' leading scorer with 17 points on 7-11 shooting off the bench. Owen Varnado (Muskegon, Mich./Western Michigan Christian) and Uchenna Egekeze (Huntley, Ill./Huntley) each finished with 14 points, while Trevin Winkle (McBain, Mich./Northern Michigan Christian) added 10 points.
 
Varnado also finished the game with eight rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks. Ressler led Calvin with six assists to go with eight points and three steals.
 
COACH'S COMMENT: "Good to see what we did in the second half," Bill Sall said. "Credit to Adrian. They took us out of a lot of offense early. We were playing pretty good defense, but we just could not buy a bucket. Mentally, we were just not engaged like we needed to be. It was good to see them kind of find some energy at the end of the first half and then really rattle some stuff off as we got into the second half."
 
"It's been awesome to come back to the alma mater and coach a great group of guys every year," Sall said about his milestone win. "It's special. It's special to be back here and it's special that, of those wins, a lot of them been really memorable ones. So hopefully we can keep making those memories."
 
NEXT UP: Calvin men's basketball returns to action on Saturday, January 18, when it hosts The University of Olivet for a game scheduled to start at 3:00 PM.