ASHLAND, VA – Randolph-Macon fashioned five players in double-figures as the Yellow Jackets topped Baruch, 84-75, in the first-round of the 2011 R-MC Coaches Classic Sponsored by Kay Jewelers.
Randolph-Macon (8-3) will face Farmingdale State on Friday in the tournament championship. Tip is set for 7:00 p.m. Baruch will take on Kean in the consolation game at 5:00 p.m. KU opened the tournament with a 77-60 loss to FSU.
Calvin Croskey led R-MC with 16 points on the night. Backcourt mate Adam Desgain scored 14 points in the win, while Lamar Giggetts had 13. Connor Sullivan and Dylan Cole each had career-highs with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Cole also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds in the victory.
The Yellow Jackets shot 48.1% for the game, making 26-of-54 shots from the floor, including 7-of-13 three-point field goals. The Jackets also cashed in at the free-throw line, making 25-of-31 chances from the charity stripe.
The game was tight through the entire first half with neither team able to open up a lead larger than six points. The first stanza also saw the score tied nine times, the final of which coming after an Andre Simon bucket sent the teams to the locker room deadlocked at 35.
The second-half was much of the same, with a Yapar jumper tying the score at 43 with just over 14 minutes to play.
On R-MC's ensuing possession, Croskey would drain a jumper that put R-MC up for good and sparked what proved to be a 20-7 run that was capped by a conventional three-point play by Sullivan. Sullivan's play made the score 63-50 in favor of the Jackets with less than 10 minutes left.
A Simon basket with eight minutes to go gave R-MC its biggest lead of the contest at 66-52. Baruch battled back, cutting the lead to seven with less than three minutes to play. That would be as close as the Bearcats would get as R-MC made 14-of-16 free-throw attempts down the stretch to seal the win.
Baruch (6-6) got a game-high 22 points from Chris Beauchamp, while CJ Jurewicz-Johnson had 13 and Fuat Yaper chipped in with 11.
-Yellow Jackets-