LATROBE, Pa (Nov. 30) – The Saint Vincent men's basketball team shot 77.3 percent from the field in the opening half to power the Bearcats past Chatham 87-53 in the Presidents' Athletic Conference opener for both teams.
It was an electrified start to the PAC season opener for both sides as neither team wasted any time putting the ball through the hoop.
Right off the tip, Matt D'Amico started things off with a three pointer from the corner which was quickly answered by Chatham with an outside shot of their own. After a pretty evenly matched scoring effort from both teams, Mike Simmons and Josh Duda provided an offensive spark for the Bearcats with a pair of three pointers that was bookmarked by an Austin Dedert dunker at the 11:00 mark of the opening half.
Throughout the first half, the Cougar offense was stifled by the Bearcat defense as they closed out the half with two different runs of nine straight and 13 consecutive points respectively before to gain a 48-21 halftime edge. Saint Vincent shot 77.3 percent from the field in the opening half, converting 17 of 22 shots. The first half saw the Bearcats connect on all five three-point field goal attempts.
The second half was a much tighter bout between both sides as Saint Vincent outscored Chatham by only seven points but the damage was already done. Senior forward Austin Ford began the scoring in the second half and had a solid performance overall, finishing with 13 points and 10 boards, making tonight his first double-double of the season. The bench also put some great numbers contributing 39 of the Bearcats 87 points with their final run coming with 2:20 left in the contest, giving them their largest lead of the night at 37 points.
The front court for the Bearcats simply overpowered the undersized Cougars, as Ford and Dedert corralled 19 rebounds between them. Overall, Saint Vincent had six players accruing five or more rebounds off the glass. Sharing the rock was also a theme of the night as Saint Vincent doubled Chatham's assist total 16 to 8.
Ford led the Bearcats in scoring with 13 followed by D'Amico with 12 and freshman forward Colin Neville netted a career-high 10 off the bench. Chatham's leading scorer was Logan Hunter, who dropped 13 followed by Isaiah Brown with 12 points.
As a team, Saint Vincent shot 55 percent from the field in the contest, connecting on 33 of 60 attempts. The Bearcats were five of 10 from behind the arc. SVC limited Chatham to 27 percent on field goals, as the Cougars made just 17 of 63 attempts. The Bearcats also outrebounded the Cougars by a 50-35 margin.
With the second win in a row at home, Saint Vincent improves to 4-3 overall and 1-0 in the PAC as they get ready to host Washington & Jefferson on Saturday, Dec. 3 at 6pm in the Carey Center. With the loss, Chatham falls to 2-3 overall and 0-1 in the PAC.