NEWBERRY — The Newberry College men’s basketball team (13-11, 13-9 SAC) earned a pivotal South Atlantic Conference victory against the Catawba Indians (9-13, 8-12 SAC), 76-64, on Wednesday in Eleazer Arena.
“Other than the first four minutes defensively, I thought, collectively, it was as good of a performance as we may have had,” said Head Coach Jason Taylor.
Catawba started the game out hot, racing to an early 8-2 lead, but TJ Brown (Columbia) was able to get a steal and converted on the breakaway to halt the Indians’ momentum. Catawba pushed their lead out to ten points, but Malakhi Stremlow (Traverse City, Mich.) was able to score a tough basket with a foul in order to keep the Wolves within striking distance. Newberry then utilized a 10-3 run that featured three-pointers from Marcus Ford (Eatonton, Ga.) and Malik Joseph (Eleuthera, Bahamas) to cut the lead down to to one before Joseph hit another three to kickstart a 14-0 Newberry run.
Catawba started off the second half on a 10-3 run to cut the lead back down to four points, but Ford stole back any momentum the Indians were building by throwing down a breakaway slam.
Catawba kept fighting, but the Wolves got back in transition as Devario Sheppard (Columbia) was able to find Sherman Robinson (Freeport, Bahamas) for an alley-oop. The Wolves were able to hold off one final push from Catawba, not allowing the lead to be cut to single-digits, on their way to closing out a 76-64 victory.
Brown finished with 21 points and five assists which led all players in both. Ford also had a solid all-around game of his own with 18 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
“The biggest thing with TJ, he had five assists tonight,” Taylor said. “When he’s doing that, he makes us so much better and Marcus just handling the ball, taking care of it against their length. Those are two really good guards,” Taylor said.
Joseph provided a strong contribution with 15 points and 5 rebounds off the bench. Meanwhile, QuanDaveon McCollum (Clio) finished with seven points and nine rebounds, and Stremlow scored eight points while grabbing seven rebounds.
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