The Dominican University men's basketball team pulled back to .500 on the season with a 72-67 win over the Edgewood College Eagles on Saturday evening at the Igini Sports Forum. The Stars overcame an early seven point deficit, using a 23-7 run to close the first half and then kept the visiting Eagles at bay in the second half to improve to 8-8 overall and 6-6 in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC).
"Our offense came out a little stagnant but we always focus on our defense this year which has been a key for us," said Dominican University junior Tim Robertson. "We kept playing defense knowing that our offense will come. We knew we would be fine."
One of the top three three-point shooting teams in the NACC, the Stars kept themselves in the game early with threes on their first five baskets, including one from freshman
Ben Walker that pulled Dominican within 18-15 with 9:15 to play in the first half and started the 23-7 run to close the half.
On the run, it was a three by
Kevin Mack that gave Dominican its first lead of the game, 22-20 with 6:14 to go in the half.
The Stars continued to build on the lead with
Keshaun Smith, who scored six points in the first half, converting on a pair of free throws in the final minute to give Dominican its largest lead of the half, 35-23, before the Eagles closed the first half scoring with a lay in by Tyler Lemke in the final 35 seconds.
The lead hovered between 5-10 points throughout much of the first nine minutes of the second half until the Stars used a quick 6-0 spurt, capped by another Walker three, to open their largest lead of the evening, 60-45, with 10:09 to play.
Dominican would go through a near four-minute scoreless drought after the Walker three, allowing the Eagles to cut the lead down to seven, 60-53, with 6:37 to go.
After a Robertson bucket snapped the Dominican drought, Edgewood answered with a three from Adam Freitag, a stop and another bucket to pull within four, 62-58.
The Stars answered with their own 6-0 run that saw Robertson score four straight before
Charlie Ollis capped the stretch with a nice catch and finish in the lane to push the lead back to double-digits, 68-58, with under four minutes to play and dash the Eagles' hopes of a comeback.
The win was Dominican's third straight win at home, improving to 6-2 at the Igini Sports Forum as opposed to 2-6 on the road.
"We work real hard on this court everyday so when we play here, we have to defend it," commented Robertson. "The energy here from the crowd and our bench is great. We have to figure out a way to translate that to road games."
Josh Mayberry paced three in double-figures for Dominican with 16 points on 6-for-10 shooting from the field, including 2-for-4 from three. Robertson added 15 points and 14 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season while Walker finished with ten points off the bench, the third time in four games the rookie has reached double-figures.
For Edgewod, Tyler Lemke poured in a game-high 23 points, shooting 8-for-14 from the floor in the losing effort.
Dominican will take a quick break from league play, traveling to Watertown, Wisconsin, on Tuesday night to take on the Maranatha Baptist University Sabrecats. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
