(Hampden Sydney, Va.) Eastern Mennonite lost a tough ODAC matchup Saturday afternoon against the Hampden-Sydney Tigers 79-68. Both teams are now 6-6 in the conference. EMU moves to 11-10 overall. H-SC now owns the season series 2-0 and a tiebreak over the Royals after winning 71-61 in Harrisonburg earlier this year.
James Williams (Capitol Heights, Md. / Archbishop Carroll) made the first EMU bucket at 19:05 to tie the game at 2-2. EMU added only three points via free throws for next ten minutes. Neither team could muster a score for nearly four minutes through the middle of the first half until a Tiger field goal at 9:41 made it 15-5. EMU broke the field goal drought when Ryan Yates (Alexandria, Va. / T.C. Williams) made a three-pointer with 8:05 to go in the half to make it 17-8.
Yates and David Falk (Madison, Va./Madison) each had four rebounds for the Royals in the very defensive first half. H-SC held each of the EMU starters to three points or less in the first frame. Yates came off the bench to score 12 of the 22 first half points for the Royals. EMU shot 36.8% from the field in the half. The Royals were never able to pull in a first half lead and went into the break at halftime down 34-22.
After halftime adjustments were made, both teams came out firing in the second half. EMU fought from double-digits down for most of the half to bring it within 15 points for the final five minutes. With 4:45 to go in the game, EMU made a 9-0 run to close the gap to 65-59, with six of those points coming from RJ Sims (Fort Washington, Md./Friendly). But the Royals could never bring it closer than a five-point game through the final minutes in the losing effort.
Sims finished the game with a team high 18 points followed closely by Falk, who added 17 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for his 14th double-double of this year's campaign. Yates finished 4-9 from the field and tallied 14 points from the bench. Marcel Crump (Richmond, Va./Highland Springs), one of the ODAC's top five point-scorers per game, was held to only three points by the stout Tigers defense, but dished out four assists. EMU outscored H-SC in the second half, 46-45, but it was not enough to overcome the first half's slow start.
EMU is now 11-10 overall and 6-6 in ODAC play. Their next game is against conference-leading Randolph-Macon at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Yoder Arena.