LAKELAND, Fla. — The Ave Maria Men's Basketball team is on their way to Georgia for an early non-conference classic but stopped in Lakeland on the way up to take on the Thomas Night Hawks on a neutral court. The Gyrenes took down their former Sun Conference mate as they won 87-78.
The game did not start out the way the Gyrenes intended as Thomas raced out to a 12-0 lead in the first two minutes of the game. Junior transfer Marlon Bennett finally got the Gyrenes on the board with a three. Thomas bumped their lead up to 14 multiple times, but Ave Maria slowly and steadily made their comeback.
Just before the five-minute mark in the first half, the Gyrenes went on a 14-2 run to take their first lead of the game at 33-30. Ave Maria hit four trifectas in the run, two from Bennett and the other two from Jack Watkins and Jai White.
The Gyrenes never returned the lead back to the Night Hawks and went into the break up 43-37.
Ave Maria led for the rest of the game, but Thomas did find a way to tie the game at 70 with under six minutes left to play. However, a historic basket put the Gyrenes back on top a gave them a lead the Night Hawks would not catch.
The big shoot came from senior Jonathan Effertz. After being held quiet in the first half, Effertz knocked down a three-pointer and jumper to get to five points in the game, but more importantly, get to 997 points in his career. Tied at 70, Effertz hit his second three-pointer of the game to put Ave Maria back in front and get to 1000 points exactly. He is the ninth player in Ave Maria history to hit 1000 points and joins teammate Michael Klekas in the quadruple digit club. Effertz hit three free throws the rest of the game to finish the day with 1003 career points.
The Gyrenes poured it on at the end, recording their largest lead of the night with one final free throw from Bennett. When the final buzzer sounded, Ave Maria walked off the court with a nine-point win.
Watkins led the team in scoring as the reigning Sun Conference Offensive Player of the Week dropped 20 points. Bennett was right behind him with 18 points. Both players tied for the team lead behind the arc with four threes. As a team, the Gyrenes hit a season-high 13 trifectas.
Three more Gyrenes hit double figures with Alex Sherwood scoring 14 and Jaylen White and Effertz each scoring 11.
With the win, Ave Maria improves to 3-0 to start the season.
The Gyrenes continue their trip north up to Waleska, Georgia, to compete in the Reinhardt Classic. Ave Maria will play on Saturday and Sunday, November 1 and 2, against host Reinhardt and RV Johnson. Johnson will be the first team the number 15 team in the country will face that received any votes in the preseason poll.
Ave Maria's Saturday game is against Reinhardt with tipoff set for 6 p.m. The game will be streamed live on Reinhardt's YouTube channel by the Southeast Sports Network.
