LYNCHBURG, Va.- The Randolph men's basketball team hosted Greensboro on Wednesday night at Giles Gymnasium. The WildCats had several strong performances across the board as they would win 89-65.
Randolph started off strong as they got to a 10-2 lead less than four minutes into the first half. The WildCat advantage soon became 13 points after a jump shot by Danny Bickey (Beckley, W.V./Woodrow Wilson) at 14:36. William Peace cut its deficit to eight points, 34-26, with 5:02 remaining in the period. It was still an eight-point deficit with 2:07 remaining but Randolph would end up going into halftime ahead 43-33.
The Pacers started the second half with a 14-9 run to close to within four points, 52-48, with 14:08 showing on the clock. A 9-3 run by the 'Cats upped their advantage to 61-51 at the 11:15 mark. The Pacer made it a two-possession game at 9:17. Randolph used a 19-7 run to break the game open and lead 80-62 with 4:17 remaining to play. The WildCats stayed out in front for the remainder of the period as William Peace could not reduce its deficit.
Randolph shot 50% (37-of-74) from the floor and was good on 35.3% (6-of-17) of its three-point attempts. William Peace shot 42.4% overall (25-of-59) and made 20.7% (6-of-29) of its three-point shots.
The WildCats controlled the glass with a 47-32 advantage. Randolph led 19-6 in points off turnovers and 13-5 in second chance points. The 'Cats also controlled the paint with a 48-30 advantage and received 33 points from its bench.
"Good to see a spread out team win," said head coach Pete Hamilton after the game. "I thought a lot of guys found a lot of different ways to contribute to the win tonight. It's great that a lot of our most impactful players tonight were off the bench."
Leading the way for Randolph was Jordan Phillips-McLoyd (Johnson City, Tenn./Science Hill) and his 23 points on 9-of-20 shooting. He was 4-of-9 from behind the three-point arc adding four assists and five rebounds. Bickey added 27 points on 6-of-13 shooting, pulling down four rebounds. Ty Clingerman (Front Royal, Va./Skyline) chipped in 11 points. Cole Perry (Salisbury, N.C./Jesse Carson) was a basket away from a triple-double as he finished with 10 rebounds, 10 assists, and eight points. Hunter Verling (Lake Mary, Fla./Lake Mary) finished with six points and six rebounds.
"Ty Clingerman was a rock in the second half for us," noted Hamilton. "Pettiford had 18 points at halftime and we made a change to go smaller on our matchup against him. Clingerman held him to just 3 shot attempts and 3 points in the second half. His offensive burst was a huge catalyst for us as well. He cuts and drives the ball with such purpose that things just open up for us. Cole Perry in his first start of the season and almost getting to a triple double is great to see. We started to run things through him in the second half and he really did a nice job of finding guys like Jordan for some easy looks."
The WildCats hit the road as they will compete at the Al Van Wie/Wooster Rotary Classic hosted by the College of Wooster this weekend. Randolph will face Ohio Northern on Friday at 6:00 p.m.