Steve Ruszala scored 18 of his 20 points in the second half on Tuesday night, leading Catawba Valley Community College’s men past visiting Wake Tech./CVCC PHOTO
HobbsDailyReport.com
HICKORY – Winning for third straight game, Catawba Valley Community College’s men closed the 2017 portion of their schedule on Tuesday night by beating Wake Tech 89-84 at the Tarlton Complex.
The Red Hawks (6-6, 1-2 Region X) picked up their first conference victory of the season.
Sophomore post player Steve Ruszala paced the Red Hawks, scoring 18 of his 20 points in the second half.
“We’ve won three in a row, so there’s positives there, but we’re certainly not anywhere close to the team we are capable of being,” CVCC head coach Bryan Garmroth said in a press release. “We just don’t play with focus and intensity.”
Ruszala was a spark.
“He turned it up,” Garmroth said of Ruszala. “If he hadn’t, we don’t win. I think he probably could (have) had 28 or 30 points if they’d have called all the fouls when he was shooting. If he didn’t step up, it’s pretty ugly for us.”
Garmroth said improvements need to be made going forward heading into the Red Hawks’ next game on Jan. 4 at Bryant & Stratton (Va.) at 7 p.m.
“Every day it just seems like it’s a struggle getting it to work,” Garmroth said. “I’m sitting here dwelling on the negatives.
“The positives are we went from 3-6 to 6-6 and we’ve seen players like Will Boyd and Victor Tshiona improve.
“We’re making progress. I can’t say enough about going from 3-6 to 6-6, but we’ve got to learn how to focus in practice and in games. We just lose it.”
- Reported by CVCC Sports Information