Ambrose advantage is home court

Feb. 10, 2005
By Dan Tomlin
Sports Editor

The Bees had one thing on their mind; win.

After falling to the William Penn Statesmen in their first meeting of the season, St. Ambrose was ready to enact some revenge.

The Bees did so, beating the first place and 23-ranked team in the nation 98-87, and in doing so kept a perfect record at Lee Lohman Arena for conference play.

The Bees got out to a fast start, outscoring the Statesmen 35-8, as SAU held William Penn to just 16% shooting for the first 15 minutes.

Leading all scoring was senior Ryan Johnson who scored 25 while fellow senior Nick Ferriera chipped in 17.

With Ante Juric still nursing an ankle injury sustained a couple weeks ago, the duties down low have been assigned to freshman Adam Fahrenkrog who has responded with tremendous vigor in the last few games.

Against William Penn, Fahrenkrog came off the bench and provided a shot in the arm as the Statesmen started to creep back into the game.

Fahrenkrog scored 14 points off the bench while also collecting 8 rebounds, just two shy of a double-double.

After the 11 point pummeling of William Penn the Bees would travel north to Clinton to take on basement dwelling Franciscan University of the Prairies.

Once again the Bees got out to a fast start, and controlled the game from tip to buzzer, beating the Saints 82-67.

With the win the Bees and the Statesmen are deadlocked atop the Midwest Classic Conference standings with just four games to go.

Still on the schedule for the Fighting Bees is top 30 Mt. Mercy as well as a home matchup against Iowa Wesleyan, a team that beat the Bees 104-100 in their last meeting.

As tournament time approaches, it's more important this year then ever before to finish first in conference, as that team will host the final four for the conference tournament, and if history has been any indication of this year's team, Lee Lohman Arena wouldn't be a bad place to win it all.

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