Jan. 26, 2012

Box Score

LANCASTER, PA - Host and ninth-ranked Franklin & Marshall went wire-to-wire in a 65-40 win over Johns Hopkins Wednesday night in Centennial Conference action. The Blue Jays drop their fourth straight as they fall to 10-8 overall and 6-5 in the conference, while the Diplomats improve to 17-1 and 10-1 in the Centennial.

It took Hopkins more than four minutes to get on the board before senior Tim McCarty sank a pair of free throws at the 15:40 mark to make it a 9-2 game. The Dips answered with a 13-2 spurt that pushed their advantage to 24-4 with 6:44 to play in the half. Jon Salandra, who finished with a career-high 24 points, punctuated the spurt with a fast-break dunk. Sophomore Connor McIntyre and junior Adam Spengler then sandwiched a pair of buckets around another Salandra layup and it was a 26-8 game.

Franklin & Marshall would push its lead to 23 after a Hayk Gyokchyan layup and a Georgio Milligan triple with 2:32 on the clock. Hopkins would score the final six points of the half though to make it a 17-point game at the break.

Coming out of the half, Hopkins began chipping away at the deficit and got it down to 14 points at 12:24 with four different Blue Jays scoring during the stretch. Freshman Joey Hajj drained his first career triple at 12:44 to make it a 41-27 game. But following a Dips' timeout, the home team came back out and built its lead to 26 points with eight minutes to play. Milligan, who had been held to just five points to that point, scored eight of F&M's 14 points during the run. That would be the last run the Jays would make at the one-loss Diplomats as the conference leader would go on to win by 25.

Sophomore Kyle Mobbs led the Blue Jays with five points, going 1-of-1 from the floor and 3-of-4 from the free throw line. Five Blue Jays finished with four points, as the team shot just 27.5 percent from the field for the game. Salandra paced the Diplomats with his 24 points and 10 rebounds, going 12-of-13 from the floor with three blocks. Milligan chipped in 13 points with four assists and three steals, while Gyokchyan had 12 points and nine boards.

Hopkins returns to action on Saturday, January 28 with the 11th annual Wall-O'Mahony game versus Muhlenberg. The game honors alumni Glenn Wall and Matt O'Mahony, who perished in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. It is one of several events scheduled for Hopkins Basketball Alumni Weekend. Tip is set for 1:00 pm at Goldfarb Gym.