Box Score
Elizabethtown, PA – The Messiah College men's basketball team improved to 2-0 in Commonwealth Conference play and 3-2 overall with Saturday's 71-61 win over the Blue Jays of Elizabethtown College.
Offensively, the Falcons were led by senior
Derek Mosley and junior
Brad Bolen, who came off of an impressive 28 point performance against Lebanon Valley College earlier in the week.
Against the Blue Jays (1-5, 0-3), Mosley was second among all scorers with 23 and brought down 11 rebounds for his second double-double of the season. Bolen contributed 25 points and grabbed five rebounds.
The Falcons scored first to take the initial lead after Elizabethtown missed their first of what would be twelve missed three-pointers in the first half -an unlikely statistic coming from the league's leaders in three-pointers made.
“We shot fairly well all game,” head coach
Rick Van Pelt said. “Derek [Mosley] and Brad [Bolen] were on fire tonight and yet it really helped us out that nothing seemed to fall for E-town in the first half.”
In fact, the Blue Jays shot 6 for 27 from the field (22.2%) and 0-12 from three-point land in the first half. Their saving grace came at the foul line as they were 5 for 8.
With a 15 point lead to begin the second half, the Falcons made it pretty difficult for the Blue Jays to make a comeback run, despite their best efforts.
Elizabethtown broke through Messiah's defense to score in three of their four opening possessions, bringing the Falcons' lead down to 10.
In the next eight minutes, both teams seemed to score at will, but it was Mosley and Bolen who each drained a pair of three-pointers to push Messiah's lead to 16 with 12 minutes to play.
The Blue Jays slowly but surely chipped away at their deficit to bring it back down to 10 with only minutes left on the clock. Sharp shooting from the foul line extinguished E-town's late surge, though, as the Falcons went 5-6 to assure the win.
“In the first half, I thought we could have made better decisions against their zone defense,” Van Pelt said. “We did better in the second half, but our defense wasn't as solid and E-town took advantage. Fortunately, the 15 point cushion we had at the half was enough to bring home the victory.”
The Falcons look to keep their momentum going when they travel to Frederick, Maryland to face off against the first of two new conference opponents, Hood College. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. next Wednesday.
