SALISBURY, MD – Host Salisbury led wire to wire in a 69-66 win over Johns Hopkins Saturday in non-conference action. The Blue Jays drop their first game of the season as they fall to 2-1 while the Sea Gulls improve to 3-1.
Trailing 60-50 with 3:50 to play,
Tanti Felli hit a layup to spark a 14-6 run that made it a 66-64 game with nine seconds on the clock. Four Blue Jays combined to fuel the run, capped by a
Jeb Williams' triple and a
Charlie Jackson layup. That's as close as JHU could get however as Salisbury went 3-of-4 from the line in the waning seconds to hold on.
The Sea Gulls jumped out to a 7-0 lead before the Blue Jays got on the board with a pair of
John Windley free throws at 16:07.
Will Stevenson then hit a three-pointer after a Brendan Davis turnover and it was 7-5 just 50 seconds later. Salisbury pushed its lead back to seven with a 7-2 spurt, capped by a Reed Rebstock layup at 13:11.
The Blue Jays got back-to-back three-pointers from Williams and
Brian Johansson and just like that the lead was down to one with 10:36 on the clock. Salisbury answered with a 13-3 run that saw its lead balloon to 11 with 5:18 to play. Daniel Oyediran and Jordan Oates combined for 11 of the Sea Gulls' 13 points during the run. The lead see-sawed up and down over the final five minutes of the half and SU took a 37-30 lead into the break.
Hopkins opened the second with buckets from Williams and Felli to slice the deficit to three. Davis responded with a layup at 17:41 and the teams traded buckets for nearly nine and a half minutes. Johansson made it a 50-48 game with a layup off a turnover. Rebstock then went one-of-two from the line and followed that with a bucket from downtown to ignite a 10-2 run that put Salisbury up 60-50 with 3:50 on the clock.
Windley led Hopkins with his second straight double-double as he finished with 19 points and 10 boards. Williams, Johansson and Jackson scored 11 points apiece, while Jackson also grabbed six rebounds and handed out three assists. Felli had a team and career-high eight rebounds to go with five points and two steals. Oates led the Sea Gulls with 19 points and a game-high 13 rebounds. Davis added 13 points and three steals, while Rebstock and Oyediran finished with 10 each.
Hopkins returns to action on Friday, November 22 against third-ranked John Carroll at the Great Lakes Invitational. The game is scheduled for a 5:30 pm tip-off at Van Noord Arena in Grand Rapids, MI.
