WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The Linfield men's basketball team's season came to a close Saturday night with the Wildcats losing to the Whitman Blues 79-65 in Sherwood Athletic Center.
"We played great for 32 minutes tonight and it wasn't enough against a terrific team," said head coach
Shanan Rosenberg. "I'm so proud of our team's fight tonight and tenacity for each other. Especially our seniors who are remarkable people and champions."
"We have endured a tumultuous season and schedule, challenges at every corner and our team has kept getting better and competing."
The Wildcats were led Saturday by a career night from sophomore guard
Trey Bryant, who scored a career-best 30 points with 10 rebounds and six assists.
Linfield (10-15, 7-9) and Whitman (21-4, 14-2) traded runs and traded leads in the first half with the Wildcats leading by as much as nine in the opening frame.
Eventually the 'Cats held a one-point lead heading into halftime at 33-32.
But the Blues came out firing in the second half, hitting back-to-back threes to spark an 11-3 run in the first 2:19 of the half. From there Whitman controlled the action, holding the lead for the rest of the night.
Linfield couldn't keep up with Whitman's scoring pace in the second half, where the Blues shot 54.5 percent from the field with eight made threes.
Whitman ended up hitting seven more three-pointers than Linfield on the night.
For the game, the Wildcats shot 44.4 percent from the field and 30.4 percent from three (7 for 23). Whitman shot 46.9 percent from the field and 38.9 percent from outside (14 for 36).
The Blues also won the battle of the boards 35-28, going +8 in the rebound margin in the second half.
Bryant's performance was his fifth double-double of the year, his fourth in the final six games of the season and the eighth of his career. His 30 points were the most scored in a game by any Wildcat this season.
Whitman was led by 17 points from Nikola Trifunovic and 15 points and five assists from Walter Lum.
Senior
Alex Jaczko was the only other Wildcat in double-digit scoring, finishing with 10 points on 5 for 7 shooting in the final game of his career.
Fellow seniors
Carson Bonine,
Jack Stallard,
Mikey Hinkle and
Jacob Hjort also concluded their Linfield careers Saturday night.
"I feel great about what we got out of our team this year," sad Rosenberg. "And our seniors are as great of people as I have ever coached. I'm grateful for all of them and we are all excited about the future of Linfield basketball."
Linfield ends the 2022-23 season in a three-way tie for fifth place in the Northwest Conference standings with Lewis & Clark and Pacific Lutheran.