Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Macon Falls Hard To Rivals At Crenshaw....

A brief good start for Randolph-Macon, and a brief comeback attempt early in the second half, were the only bright spots tonight for the Yellow Jackets in their attempt to take down arch-rival, and ODAC leader, Hampden-Sydney.

The Tigers held the Jackets without a point for nine minutes in the middle of the first half en route to a 15 point halftime lead, which proved too much to overcome as Hampden-Sydney pulled away for a 66-47 win Wednesday night at a sold out Crenshaw Gymnasium.

"You have to give them credit. They came in and played well tonight," Randolph-Macon head coach Nathan Davis said, giving a nod to the Tigers performance. He wasn't entirely unhappy with his defense.  It was the offense that never found a rhythm.

"I thought we did a good job defensively throughout the game for the most part, but we had a stretch where we turned it over a bunch of times, which allowed them, despite how well we were playing defensively, to get a couple of easy baskets. They had a three that bounced around and go in, and they started feeling good about themselves," Davis noted.

The Jackets shot just 26 percent from the floor in the first half, missing all six of their three-point attempts, and found themselves down 32-17 at intermission. But Randolph-Macon stormed out of the locker room on a 6-0 run in 90 seconds to trim the lead to nine. Joe Hassell's jumper with 12:52 to go cut the lead to 35-29, but Hanover High graduate Greg Lewis responded with a big three-pointer for the Tigers, and Randolph-Macon never got within seven points again. Lewis scored 14 for the Tigers.

Randolph-Macon was led by Andre Simon and Lamar Giggetts' 10 point efforts.

The Jackets, now 8-5 in the ODAC, tied for 4th place with Guilford a game behind Randolph, next face Eastern Mennonite at home this Saturday at 2pm.

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