Men’s Basketball Loses at Newberry
NEWBERRY, S.C. - The Newberry Wolves jumped out to a big first half lead and held off a second half Mars Hill charge to earn an 89-76 win in Eleazer Arena on Wednesday night.
Newberry moves to 13-6 overall and 7-4 in South Atlantic Conference play, while Mars Hill falls to 4-16 overall and 2-9 in the league.
Savad Garner led the Wolves with 20 points and Matt Dixon netted 15 points. Shamel Akins scored 14 points and went 10-for-10 from the charity stripe. Chris Reynolds scored 12 points and grabbed a team high eight rebounds and Tomas Tomasson scored 11 points to round out the Wolves' double digit scorers.
For Mars Hill, the nation's top freshman scorer - Terrell Harris - led all players with 31 points to go with eight rebounds, while the nation's top overall scorer - Sammy Emile - scored 22 points despite sitting out most of the first half with early foul trouble.
The visiting Lions used the glass early to take an 8-7 lead in the first three minutes, with Harris and Cody King banking in three-pointers. Newberry responded with a 10-0 run to push to a 17-8 lead with 13 minutes left in the half.
Newberry's lead was at 31-24 with 5:15 left in the first half and scored 13 straight points with a pair of layups from Reynolds, a Tomasson triple and back-to-back Walker three pointers pushing the advantage to 44-24 with two minutes left. The Wolves were able to get out to as much as a 25-point lead before taking a 52-29 lead into the break.
The Wolves shot 59.4% (19-of-32) from the field in the first half, and made 11-of-12 free throw chances (91.7%). Mars Hill was 10-of-24 (41.7%) from the field in the half and made only 4-of-15 (26.7%) of its first half free throws.
After the teams traded buckets out of the locker room, a Dixon three-pointer gave Newberry its largest lead of the game at 57-31 just a minute into the half. The scoring went in waves before the Lions used a 9-0 run in the middle of the half to cut the lead down to 12 points at 75-63 with 7:48 left in regulation. An Akins jumper in the lane with five minutes left gave Newberry an 81-69 lead, but the Lions made things tight with a 7-0 run, narrowing the deficit to 81-76 with just under three minutes remaining.
Mars Hill went 0-for-4 from the field for the remainder of the game, and Newberry went 6-for-8 at the free throw line to close out the win.
Newberry shot 46.2% (12-of-26) in the second half to wind up with a solid 53.4% (31-of-58) percentage for the game. Mars Hill made 51.6% (16-of-31) of its second half shots on the way to a 47.3% (26-of-55) percentage for the game.
The Wolves hit the road to take on Lenoir-Rhyne on Saturday, while the Lions host Anderson that afternoon.