MIllersville opens men's college basketball season with victory over Claflin
The outcome of the game essentially came down to a four-minute stretch late in the first half.
Down by five, the Millersville University men's basketball team ran off 18 unanswered points to take a 13-point lead, which it never surrendered.
The end result was an 89-70 win for the Marauders over Claflin University in the season-opening Ron Wilson Classic Saturday night at Pucillo Gym.
"I thought it was actually a very good first game for us," said Marauders head coach Casey Stitzel. "We're at a point in our season where we're just trying to figure out what works, what doesn't and trying to get to know guys."
The new-look Marauders have only three returning players from last year's 24-7 team and added 11 newcomers, including seven transfers, to the roster. They had four turnovers on their first four trips down the court and fell behind 4-0 before returner Drew Stover broke the ice 2:23 into the opening half.
"We have a bunch of new guys and I think at the beginning we were a little hyped up and we had guys dropping the ball and making mistakes," Stitzel said.
With the game tied 25-25, the Marauders had five consecutive possessions that swung the momentum in their favor and electrified the crowd.
Alec Topper, a transfer from Bridgewater College, got it started with a 3-pointer. He then slammed home a Stover miss the next time down for a 30-25 lead. Montell Cooper, a grad student transfer from Marymount University, added a pair of three-point plays, which were sandwiched around a Stover slam and the 'Ville lead grew to 38-25 with 58 seconds left in the half.
"Everything got set up by our defense," said Stitzel. "On those possessions our defense went up a notch. When we guard and we defend, we can beat anyone. That spurt that we had there, if we can maintain that defense for 40 minutes, we're going to be tough to beat."
In the second half, the Panthers cut Millersville's lead to 71-65 with 6:58 to play, but they could get no closer as another late surge eventually pushed the Marauders' lead to 89-68.
Millersville finished with five players scoring in double figures. Stover led the way with 20 points (nine rebounds), while Cooper added 16, Aiden Gair (transfer from Division 1 Montana State) had 14, Saraj Ali (transfer from Mansfield) scored all 11 of his points in the second half, and Aamir Hurst (transfer from Holy Family) came off the bench to score 10.
"That should be our M.O. all year," said Stitzel. "It should be five, six, even seven guys. We have at least three or four guys off the bench who can come off and also score 10-20 points."
