HARRISONBURG, VA – Randolph-Macon led wire-to-wire as it picked up an 86-72 ODAC road win at Eastern Mennonite Saturday night in men's basketball action.
R-MC (3-4 / 2-1 ODAC) had four players score in double-figures in the win, led by a team-high 16 points from Andre Simon. Fellow starters Marcus Badger and Lamar Giggetts had 13 and 12 points, respectively. Chris Hamilton came off the bench to score 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting.
The Yellow Jackets out rebounded the Royals 44-29. Simon grabbed a game-high nine boards to lead the Jackets. Giggetts had six rebounds and Akeem Holmes had six boards to go along with nine points off the bench for R-MC.
Randolph-Macon shot 53.6% (30-56) for the game, including a blistering 55.6% from the field in the second-half. R-MC made 21-of-30 attempts from the free-throw line in the win as well.
EMU (6-2 / 1-2 ODAC) was paced by a game-high 30 points from Andrew Thorne on 11-of-14 shooting. R.J. Sims had 14 points for the Royals who made 26-of-57 (45.6%) shots on the night. Eastern Mennonite made 37 trips to the foul line, but was only able to convert 19 of those attempts. EMU was just 1-of-10 from three-point range as well.
R-MC came out strong in the first-half taking a 16-5 lead following a pair of free-throws from Jamie Robinson at the 13:45 mark.
EMU would score the next eight points to cut the lead to three at 16-13, before the Yellow Jackets went on a 12-4 run and pushed its lead to 28-17 on a Connor Sullivan three-pointer with just under nine minutes to go in the half.
A Badger bucket in the closing seconds of the half gave R-MC a 41-34 edge before a pair of Sims free-throws with two seconds on the clock sent the teams to the locker room with the Jackets leading by five.
R-MC used two quick scores to start the second-half to push its lead to nine. EMU was able to battle back and cut the Jackets lead to 53-49 with 15:20 to go.
Randolph-Macon responded with a 9-0 run that gave the Yellow Jackets a 62-49 edge following a Hamilton layup with just over 13 minutes to go in the game.
The Royals made one last rally, cutting the margin to seven at 62-55, but R-MC used a 9-1 run, taking 71-56 advantage after two shots from the charity stripe by Simon with 9:23 to play.
Randolph-Macon will break for exams before returning to action on December 17th when it travels to Catholic for a 7:00 p.m.