After suffering a heartbreaking loss less than 24 hours ago, the Covenant men's basketball team bounced back nicely on Saturday afternoon. The Scots used a 35 point effort from Colton McGriff en route to a 94-76 victory over Bethany Lutheran in Mankato.
On Friday night, Covenant fell 79-77 at Crown (Minn.) in the final seconds. On Saturday, the Scots made sure that didn't happen again.
With the win, Covenant goes back to .500 at 4-4.
McGriff had a career-high 35 points on 14-of-24 shooting and registered a double-double with 11 rebounds before fouling out late. The 35 points are the most for a Covenant player since Reed Crosson achieved the feat on February 9, 2008 against Virginia Intermont. McGriff nearly had a double-double at halftime with 21 points and eight rebounds in the opening 20 minutes.
Three other Scots scored in double figures as Ben Phelps had 14 points with Nate Frierson and Micah Turner chipping in 12 and 11, respectively. Frierson also collected six rebounds to go with three assists and three steals.
The winless Vikings of Bethany Lutheran (0-6) jumped out to a 10-4 lead in the early minutes of the first half before Covenant came charging back. The Scots, behind McGriff's scoring ability, eventually built a double-digit lead in the half and took a 39-28 edge into halftime.
The Vikings rallied to cut the Covenant deficit to four points on a couple of occasions, but each time the Scots had an answer to push the lead back up. Covenant took its largest lead of 18 points in the waning seconds of the contest.
Bethany Lutheran was led by Jacob Wensmann's double-double of 29 points and 16 rebounds. Luke Roddy also scored in double figures with 15 points to go along with five assists.
Covenant shot 54.2 percent (32-of-59) from the field and connected on a season-high nine 3-pointers (20 attempts). The Scots also made 21-of-31 from the free throw line. Bethany Lutheran outreboudned Covenant 44-33.
Covenant will return home on Friday, December 13 when they face Birmingham Southern at Barnes Physical Education Center. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m.