FREDERICK, Md.--All five starters reached double figures for the Hood College men's basketball team as the Blazers (2-0) defeated visiting Goucher College (0-1), 72-62, in the opening round of the Pride of Maryland Tournament at the Odom Fitness Center at Fort Detrick Tuesday.

The victory propels the Blazers into the winners' bracket of the eight-team tournament, which continues Friday and Saturday at Stevenson University. Hood will take on a familiar foe, the nationally ranked St. Mary's College (Md.) Seahawks, who bested Johns Hopkins University at home, 73-66. The Blazers will take on the Seahawks, who have claimed back-to-back Pride of Maryland crowns and won the 2010 Capital Athletic Conference title, at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

Hood held the advantage for the majority of the first half, leading by as many as eight before the Gophers stole their first lead of the contest in the final minute of the stanza. A layup by Shane Yambor and a trey by Dorian Green gave the Gophers a 32-30 edge heading into halftime.

The Blazers used an 11-1 run over the first 3:16 to regain the eight-point cushion at the 16:44 mark of the second half. Junior Brenden Straughn netted five points in the spurt. Goucher would go on to score on its next three possessions to cut the deficit to two and eventually tied the score at 41-41 on a Trae Lindsay jumper. The Gophers and Blazers would trade baskets over the next five exchanges before the Blazers ripped off six straight points to take a 57-51 lead with 6:17 left in regulation. Later, a conventional three-point play in transition by Tyler Snoots extended the Blazer lead to 10, 63-53, with 3:37 showing on the clock, and the Gophers got no closer than four the rest of the way.

Straughn led all scorers with a season-high 23 points on 9-of-16 shooting. Cameron Cook matched his season-high with 15 points while Reco Siler finished with 11 and Justin Stone and Snoots chipped in 10 apiece. Snoots finished with a double-double, the sixth of his career, by hauling in a game-high 11 boards. Rian McHenry blocked a career-high five shots on the night.

The Blazers lost to St. Mary's, 89-77, in the 2009 Pride of Maryland championship game at Goucher. Hood looks to snap a five-game losing skid to SMCM and earn its first win over the Seahawks since Feb. 6, 2008 (84-80). That year, the Blazers downed the Seahawks three straight times, including a 108-96 win in the second round of the Pride of Maryland tournament. Hood is 2-1 all-time against St. Mary's in Pride of Maryland tournament games; the Blazers first defeated St. Mary's, 70-61, in the fifth-place game of the 2006 tournament.