BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins men's basketball team hit 15-of-25 (.600) three-pointers and outscored visiting Dickinson 51-31 after halftime as the Blue Jays locked up the number two seed in the upcoming Centennial Conference Tournament with a convincing 91-61 victory Saturday evening in Goldfarb Gymnasium.
 
The Blue Jays improve to 16-9 overall and 10-3 in the Centennial Conference with tonight's win and will play the highest remaining seed from the opening-round games featuring teams seeded third through sixth.  Johns Hopkins will host a semifinal game in the tournament on Friday, February 28.
 
Johns Hopkins took the lead for good early in Saturday night's game as the Blue Jays used an 11-0 lead to turn an early 5-4 deficit into a 15-5 lead.  A Neill Dickey layup was followed by a Brian Johansson three-pointer and back-to-back Jeb Williams triples to help fuel the 11-point run.
 
The Blue Jays would later extend the lead to 24-10 on a Wyatt Eglinton Manner layup just over 11 minutes into the game, only to see the Devils make their biggest push with an 8-0 run that David Petrusev ignited with a layup and Brandon Wiercinski capped with a three-pointer of his own to make it 24-18.
 
The Blue Jays would carry a 10-point lead into the break (40-30) and led by just eight after Wiercinski knocked down another triple with 11:53 on the second-half clock.  The Devils hung around for two more minutes and a pair of free throws had them within 10 (58-48) as the clocked dripped under the 10-minute mark, but a Johansson three-pointer ignited a blistering 33-13 run to end the game for the Blue Jays.
 
During the game-ending run, which started with the Johansson triple with 9:01 on the clock, the Blue Jays hit 12-of-15 shots from the floor, including 6-of-7 from beyond the arc, and Johansson and Luke Thorburn both scored eight points to fuel the spree.  Seven different players scored down the stretch for Johns Hopkins, which held Dickinson to just 2-of-11 shooting from the floor during the final nine minutes; eight of Dickinson's 13 points over that stretch came from the free throw line.
 
Johansson led a balanced scoring attack for the Blue Jays as he punched up 20 points with four of Hopkins' 15 three-pointers in the game.  Thorburn (15), Eglinton Manner (14), Williams (11) and Charlie Jackson (10) also scored in double figures for the Blue Jays, who hit 32-of-56 (.571) shots from the floor, including the 15-of-25 from deep.
 
Petrusev and Wiercinski combined for 32 of Dickinson's 61 points on the night, but after staying close in the first half by shooting 11-of-22 (.500) from the floor, the Devils were just 9-of-28 (.321) after the break, while Hopkins was busy hitting 17 of its 26 (.654) shots after the break, including 9-of-12 (.750) from beyond the arc.