The Roanoke College men’s basketball team picked up two big wins in the span of four days to jump back into the Old Dominion Athletic Conference race. The Maroons beat Hampden-Sydney in Salem last Wednesday, 62-47, then traveled to Virginia Beach Saturday where they gave host Virginia Wesleyan University their first conference loss of the season, 73-64.
After last weekend three ODAC teams now have one conference loss, Washington & Lee, Randolph-Macon and Virginia Wesleyan, while three others have just two losses, RC, Hampden-Sydney and Averett. The Maroons were scheduled to play at the University of Lynchburg on Wednesday but results were too late for publication.
The win over Hampden-Sydney was big as it was a bounce-back game after losing a heartbreaker to Washington & Lee, by one point, in their previous outing. Roanoke jumped up on the Tigers 28-19 at the half and a 9-0 run with just under five minutes to play sealed the win. Roanoke’s defense held the visitors to just three-for-23 shooting from three-point range.
Junior Jackson Bell earned the first double-double of his career, scoring 17 points with 10 rebounds and four assists. Caleb Franze had 11 points and Marcus Morgan finished with eight points, nine rebounds, four assists and three steals.
On Saturday at Virginia Beach Bell and Morgan led the charge again with 17 points each as the Maroons downed the Marlins. Roanoke led by as many as nine points in the first half but the Marlins cut the edge to 37-36 by intermission. The Maroons led by just two points with two minutes left in the contest before layups by Tyler Barnes and Bell and two free throws by Patrick Clevenger extended the advantage to eight. The Roanoke defense put the game away by allowing just one point in the final 2:44.
In addition to Bell and Morgan the Maroons got 14 points from Franze and 10 from Barnes. Bell added a game-high nine rebounds.
With the win the Maroons improved to 11-4 overall pending their trip to Lynchburg Wednesday. This Saturday Bridgewater is here for a 2 pm tip-off at the Cregger Center in Salem.
