St. Mary's City, Md. – All but one of the 16 suited players scored for No. 14 St. Mary's College of Maryland as the Seahawk men's basketball team tallied a convincing 87-58 victory over Hood College in Capital Athletic Conference action Saturday afternoon.
With the win, the Seahawks (7-2, 3-0 CAC) are tied for first in the league standings with University of Mary Washington. Today's triumph also marked the second time this season that St. Mary's has beaten Hood. The Seahawks had picked up a 77-60 victory on November 19 in the second round of the Pride of Maryland tournament.
Senior guard Alex Franz (Catonsville, Md./Cardinal Gibbons) and junior forward Mikey Fitzpatrick (Bethesda, Md./Walt Whitman) had nearly identical box score lines as both finished with 12 points on 5-of-5 shooting, going 2-of-2 from downtown. Franz added two assists and one steal while Fitzpatrick had three assists, career-best three steals and one rebound.
St. Mary's never trailed and led by a double-digit margin for nearly 26 minutes of the 40-minute contest. The Seahawks biggest lead came at the 9:19-minute mark of the second half as the home team was up by 40 points when senior forward Kyle Jarczynski (Bel Air, Md./Calvert Hall) converted two free throws to cap a 9-0 run.
The Seahawks owned a 49-21 halftime advantage as Fitzpatrick and junior guard James Davenport (Owings Mills, Md./Loyola Blakefield) each notched 10 first-half points to lead all players. Davenport finished the game with his 10 points in 12 minutes of action.
In the first half, St. Mary's shot 64.0% from the floor, including a blistering 77.8% (7-of-9) from downtown. The Seahawks finished 10-of-15 from behind the arc for their second-most number of three-point field goals made this season.
St. Mary's racked up 34 points off of 22 Hood turnovers while the Seahawk bench notched 46 points to 15 from the Blazer reserves. Before fouling out, first-year center Christian MacAuley (Silver Spring, Md./Paint Branch) picked up seven points and team-best six rebounds for the home team.
Senior center Tyler Snoots (Frederick, Md./Gov. Thomas Johnson) paced the Blazers (4-4, 2-2 CAC) with game-bests of 18 points and nine rebounds while first-year guard Justin Bowens (Frederick, Md./Tuscarora) and junior forward LaVar Rich (Northumberland, Va./Northumberland) added 12 and 11 points, respectively.
St. Mary's will be back in action next Friday, December 17 as the Seahawks take on Olivet College in non-conference action in the first round of the Cruzin' Classic in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The game will be played at 5:00 pm at Northwood University.