USC Aiken defeats Men's Basketball, 96-72

MARS HILL, N.C. - USC Aiken defeated Mars Hill, 96-72, on Tuesday inside Stanford Arena.

Mars Hill opened the game on a 7-2 spurt, highlighted by a fastbreak two-handed flush by Sammy Emile two minutes into the contest.

USC Aiken came back, taking a 12-11 advantage off a three by Ronald Zimmerman at the 14:12 mark of the first half. A trey by Zimmerman two minutes later increased the Pacers' lead to 20-11, who hit five of their first seven three-point attempts in the first 11 minutes of the game.

An old-fashioned three-point play by Terrell Harris, including a dunk, cut the deficit to single digits, 26-17. Another old-fashioned trey by Sammy Emile at the 9:17 mark made the score 26-20 in favor of the visitors. Two free throws by Emile made the deficit 32-28 with six minutes on the clock.

A two-handed dunk by USC Aiken's Joel Gierbolini gave his team a 40-32 advantage with 3:18 left in the first half, and the Pacers led 47-36 at intermission. Emile led all scorers with 13 in the first period. Zimmerman had 11.

USC Aiken's Terrance Dent hit consecutive treys to give his team a 55-38 advantage three minutes into the second period. The Pacers led the rest of the game and came away with the victory.

USC Aiken's Re'Mon Nelson finished with a game-high 20 points. Gierbolini added 18. Dent and Zimmerman had 14 apiece. Gierbolini also posted 14 rebounds.

Emile and Harris tallied 19 and 18 points, respectively. Petar Kostic had 12.

The Pacers shot 39-of-68 (57.4%) from the field. The Lions were 24-of-52 (46.2%) in the game.

Mars Hill will travel to Lenoir-Rhyne to open South Atlantic Conference action on Wednesday, Nov. 30. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m.