Dan Fanelly

The College of Wooster closed the regular season by extending its NCAA Div. III-leading active streak of 20-win seasons to 19, as the 24th-ranked Fighting Scots prevailed in a defensive battle at Oberlin College, 58-45, on Saturday afternoon in Oberlin, Ohio.

Wooster (20-5, 14-4 North Coast Athletic Conference) never trailed, though Oberlin (10-15, 6-12 NCAC) was within striking distance most of the way. After scoring the game's first four points, the Scots built a double-digit lead of 17-7 when Ari Stern hit the team's first 3-pointer.

In a back-and-forth first half, the Yeomen pulled as close as 19-14, then Wooster had a 9-2 run, capped by a Xavier Brown 3-pointer, for a 12-point advantage (28-16) and eventually took a 30-21 lead into the halftime break.

The Scots used a 12-2 stretch, which included five points from Brown and four from Josh Kipfer, fairly early into the second half for their largest lead of 17 points (44-27), however, Oberlin chipped away and made things interesting down the stretch.

With 1:54 to go, the home team scored for a second series in a row to make it a two-possession game (51-45), then Wooster's top scorer, Evan Pannell, made his only field goal, draining a 3-pointer to help finalize the outcome.

The Scots won, despite shooting a season-low 34.4 percent from the floor (21-for-61), as their defense was up to the task, limiting the Yeomen to an even lower rate (.321; 18-for-56) and helping them into 19 turnovers.

Dan Fanelly led all players with 16 points plus ripped down a Wooster-high seven rebounds, while Brown added 13 markers in the scoring column.

The Yeomen were paced by Nathan Cohen's 10 points.

The Scots will be the No. 2 seed for next week's NCAC Tournament, and thus host a quarterfinal game on Tuesday night.