No. 16 St. Mary’s Owns First-Place Outright
Fort Detrick, Md. - With their eighth consecutive victory, the No. 16 St. Mary's College of Maryland men's basketball team claimed sole possession of first-place in the Capital Athletic Conference standings as the Seahawks posted a 65-54 triumph over Hood College Wednesday night.
The loss drops Hood (11-6, 6-2 CAC) into a tie for second place with York (Pa.) College who was an 87-81 winner at University of Mary Washington tonight.
The 16th-ranked Seahawks (14-2, 7-1 CAC) were led in the win by four players in double figures. Leading the balanced attack was senior guard Camontae Griffin (Baltimore, Md./Dunbar) as Griffin tallied a game-high 17 points while junior center Sam Burum (Bethesda, Md./Walt Whitman) picked up a career-best 15 and pulled down a team-high five rebounds.
Junior guard Alex Franz (Catonsville, Md./Cardinal Gibbons) added a dozen points, eight assists and five boards for St. Mary's while sophomore guard James Davenport (Owings Mills, Md./Loyola Blakefield) notched 11 on 5-of-9 shooting.
The Seahawks rolled out to a 6-0 start before stretching it to 10-2 at 17:03. However, an 8-0 spurt put Hood right back in the thick of things as the Blazers claimed their first lead of the night at 13:03 (11-10). It was a short-lived home lead as Burum's jumper capped a 9-0 run which gave St. Mary's its biggest lead of the half, 24-15 at 4:15.
Griffin's 11 first-half points lifted the Seahawks to a 27-22 halftime lead while defensively, the visitors held Hood to 13 miscues and 25.0% shooting from the floor.
Sophomore forward Tory Wilson's (Frederick, Md./Seneca Valley) game-high 11 caroms allowed Hood to dominate the boards for the game, 41-31. Wilson finished the night with a double-double as he tallied 13 points along with three blocks. Junior center Tyler Snoots (Frederick, Md./Gov. Thomas Johnson) had a team-best 14 points as well as seven rebounds to lead the Blazers.
The Seahawks connected on nearly 60% of their shots in the second half, augmenting their five-point halftime lead to as many as 13 on five different occasions. Improved shooting by Hood permitted them to trim the deficit early on, pulling within four twice in the half's first five minutes, but that would be as close as they would get the rest of the way.
The Seahawks will return to action this Saturday, January 23 as St. Mary's travels to the Eastern Shore to take on Salisbury University in another conference tilt at 4:00 pm. In their first meeting back on December 9, St. Mary's posted a 72-60 triumph over the Sea Gulls behind a combined 33 points from Griffin (17) and Franz (16).
