VINCENNES, Ind. – The No. 4-ranked Vincennes University Trailblazers finished their game Saturday night with five scorers in double-figures in a big 104-58 win over Elgin Community College.

The Trailblazers got off to a bit of a slow start, after scoring the first five points of the game, VU played the Spartans even to hold a 16-11 advantage early in the first half.

Vincennes broke the game wide open after this point with a massive 19-0 scoring run to take a 35-11 lead over Elgin.

VU would continue to grow their lead before the halftime break, scoring the final six points of the period to head into the locker room holding a 50-27 advantage over Elgin.

Coming out of the locker room in the second half the Trailblazers looked to fully put the game away and a 17-0 scoring run to take a 86-36 lead, their largest lead of the night.

VU Hall of Fame Coach Todd Franklin mostly rested his starters at this point and gave the second unit some big minutes down the stretch.

VU would trade baskets with Elgin throughout the final seven minutes of the game, with VU cruising late to a big 104-58 victory at the Physical Education Complex.

“I thought, for the most part, we executed pretty well,” VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. “We missed a bunch of free throws after we had earned the right to be at the free throw line. That got a little frustrating but that happened. We made a few turnovers because they played so far up the hill trying to take away the swing from one side to the other that they were giving you downhill drives. Sometimes you’re almost feeling awkward because you’re not supposed to just be able to go downhill on the front side every time and we made four or five turnovers that gave them buckets at the other end.”

“But other than that, I thought we were pretty good, for this basketball game,” Franklin added. “I thought we got a little too laxed a few times late and gave them some room on threes. Because they shoot the ball from about five feet further back of the line. Those little, small guards are used to being small guards and they are used to shooting from further out than people will guard them. I tried to explain that to our guys and thought there was a little stretch there in the second half where we got a little laxed and they made some shots. But the most part we were pretty good. Everybody contributed. Everybody got out there and everybody got some things going. We’ll have to ratchet it up for a big weekend next weekend but it was about what you were going to get done tonight.”

The Trailblazers were led offensively off the bench by freshman Gerard Thomas (Henderson, Ky.) who picked up some big minutes in the second half on his way to a game-high 19 points, three rebounds and two assists.

Freshman Mathieu Nader-Kalombo (Longueuil, Quebec) also came off the bench to score in double-figures, scoring 15 points on just eight shots from the floor, including hitting a perfect three of three from three-point range.

Sophomore Michael Osei-Bonsu (Bolingbrook, Ill.) finished his night with 12 points and six rebounds, while fellow sophomore Ryan Oliver (Antioch, Tenn.) came off the bench to put together 11 points, seven rebounds and six assists.

Freshman Lebron Thomas (Bishopville, S.C.) was the fifth VU scorer in double-figures, ending with 11 points and a pair of assists.

Freshman Damarien Yates (Somerville, Tenn.) was just short of his first career-double-double finishing with eight points and a team-high 10 rebounds.

Sophomore Karyiek Dixon (Enfield, London, UK) was also close to a double-double with nine points and seven rebounds, while sophomore Kent King (Washington, D.C.) was getting really close to a triple-double with seven points, nine rebounds and seven assists.

Sophomore Victor Lado (Louisville, Ky.) came off the bench to add eight points as part of 61 total bench points for the Trailblazers Saturday night.

“That’s kind of the story of our team,” Franklin said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that we think are pretty good players and if they share the ball and do the right things, they are all capable and we expect that. We think it’s hard to really zero in on who you are going to stop with us and that was the story of tonight. I thought we shared the ball pretty well. There were times when maybe it didn’t look like it because we were playing so much downhill because they were giving it and Gerard was going in and really bullying it in. But it was really the right play with how they were trying to defend us.”

“We’ll share the ball,” Franklin added. “We obviously shot it well from behind the three-point line. There might have been one of those that might have been questionable, but out of our 17 three-point attempts, probably 16 of them were pretty good. And we shot them confidently and we hit 11. Hitting 11 out of 17 is pretty good.”

“But we’re capable of doing that,” Franklin said. “Our main group has shot fairly well on the year. We’re sitting at about 34 or 35 percent but we’ve had some guys off the bench that have not shot very well early in some minutes that weren’t the deciding minutes of the game. If you take those out, our main guys are probably shooting closer to 37 to 38 percent and if we’re somewhere between 36 and 38 percent from the three-point line on the year, we’ll be pretty good. And I think we should be if we take the right ones.”

“We’re getting better and shooting better and guys are spending more time, now we’ve got to get in the gym and spend more time at the free throw line,” Franklin added. “But we’ve shared the ball and did what we could do. There’s always things you can pick apart in a game but I thought it was a pretty good effort on our part.”

VU will look to continue this momentum into a very tough road matchup next weekend when Vincennes heads to Ottumwa, Iowa to take on No. 11 Indian Hills Community College Friday, Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. eastern.

This will be the first of two games for the Trailblazers over the weekend as part of the Indian Hills Classic as VU will return to IHCC Saturday, Dec. 9 to take on Sauk Valley Community College from Lee County, Ill. Tip-off time for that game is set for 4:30 p.m. eastern.

“I think it’s been a pretty successful start to the year,” Franklin said. “Obviously we’re 10-0 playing the schedule that we’ve played, that’s obviously successful. There’s no question. With the people that we’ve played and then you add in the things that we’ve gone through. Our health and our sickness, we’ve had some guys dinged up that are main guys and we’ve lost guys at the start of big time games and at the very beginning of games and had to figure it out on the fly. We’ve had less than a full lineup in big time showdown games multiple times now and even against Monroe Lebron was really playing hobbled with a groin at that point and we’re just trying to figure out how to get through it.”

“We were missing guys for the Indian Hills game, Lebron’s out and other guys are sick,” Franklin added. “And the same thing against Moberly when Kris is out and Victor didn’t make the trip and everybody was pretty down. So our guys have had to face some things that certainly could have been justifiable in falling short of being 10-0 right now but they have found a way to make sure that they have not fallen and it’s a good trait. They’ve just kind of handled their business and we’ve handled our business of handling things as they come to us. I think our guys have done a good job with that.”

“Now we’ll have to handle a week of finals week before you’ve got to go on the road and play Indian Hills and Sauk Valley,” Franklin said. “Those are two tough games. The Sauk game is going to be very difficult. You play the second game on Friday night and have to turn around and play them the next afternoon. If you win, it’s a big high because you’ve won. If you don’t, it’s a big low and you’re on a quick turnaround to play. But that’s what you try to do. You try to put these guys in situations and you hope that you can win while you learn doing it.”

“I think our team is getting better,” Franklin added. “I think it’s gotten better and I think there’s a lot more room for it to get better. We’ve got a number of players, they always get better as they learn what they are supposed to do, but it’s about individuals improving. As individuals improve, your team will get better and then you are able to make right choices and figure out what you can do with your team as the players get better. And I think we are seeing some growth from players and there’s more growth to be there. I think they’ve seen enough now that they know what we’re talking about and I think that most of them are embracing that and we’ll just race the clock and see how good we can get at the end of the year. I think that if we can stay relatively healthy that we’ll be in the race to be one of the teams that can do some real damage at the end and that’s what we are trying to reach one day at a time right now.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – University of Southern Indiana Men’s Basketball ran out of time and lost to Bowling Green State University, 54-52, Saturday afternoon at Screaming Eagles Arena. The Screaming Eagles slide to 2-7 after today’s action, while the Falcons are 5-3 this season.

The Eagles and the Falcons traded buckets and leads through the first eight minutes of the game, until Bowling Green used an 8-0 run to take a 15-9 lead with 8:41 left.

A pair of buckets by sophomore guard Jack Campion (Milton, Wisconsin) sparked a 10-4 run by the Eagles to knot the game 19-19 with 3:41 left in the half. The USI run would extend to 19-6 as the Eagles took a 28-21 lead into halftime after junior forward Jack Mielke (Downers Grove, Illinois) and junior guard Jeremiah Hernandez (Chicago, Illinois) hit back-to-back three-pointers in the final minute of the half.

Hernandez led the USI charge to the halftime lead with seven points, five coming during the late first half the run. Campion, Mielke, and sophomore forward Kiyron Powell (Evansville, Indiana) had six points each to follow Hernandez in the scoring column. Powell also led the Eagles defensively with three first half blocks.

In the second half, USI and Bowling Green came out sluggish on the offensive ends with both teams combining for one-of-11 from the field. The Falcons’ offense would spark with a 6-0 run to regain the lead, 34-33, with 10:59 to play in the game.

After trading leads over the next three minutes, Bowling Green took the lead for good with 7:59 to play, 38-37, and built a six-point lead with 2:20 remaining, 51-45. USI tried to rally, cutting the deficit to one point at  51-50 on a free throw by Powell and 53-52 on a pair of charity shots by Campion, but could not get a game tying shot off in the final second before falling 54-52.

Hernandez had a chance to send the game into overtime, hitting a shot from the left corner, but time had expired.

For the game, Hernandez led USI with 15 points in the game. Powell, who recorded his first USI double-double with a team-best 10 rebounds, and Mielke followed Hernandez in the scoring column with 11 points each.

Next Up For USI:
The homestand concludes December 6 versus Purdue University Fort Wayne. Tipoff against Ft. Wayne is slated for 7 p.m.

Purdue Fort Wayne is 7-1 this season after defeating Oakland University, 98-77, today on the road. The Mastodons, who began the season with five-straight victories, started the week with a 75-71 win over the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay at home Wednesday.

VINCENNES, Ind. – The third meeting of the Vincennes University Lady Trailblazers and the Moberly Area Lady Greyhounds definitely lived up to the hype Saturday afternoon as it took overtime to decide a winner in the Physical Education Complex.

The two teams split the first two meetings this season, with VU winning at Moberly in the first game of the season and the Lady Greyhounds winning at Three Rivers College in Poplar Bluff a week later.

Vincennes led the entire game before Moberly rallied to even the score late in the fourth quarter and closed out the game in overtime 62-61 over the Lady Blazers.

The Lady Trailblazers already entered the game short-handed with only nine active players entering Saturday’s game but were able to come out firing to begin the game, taking an early 10-2.

The Vincennes lead continued to grow throughout the first quarter, with VU holding a 19-6 advantage after the first 10 minutes of play.

Moberly Area looked to answer back in the second quarter and was able to cut the deficit down to four with a 10-0 scoring run to make it 27-23.

Vincennes answered back in front of the home crowd with a 7-0 scoring run and went into the locker room holding a 34-25 halftime lead over the Lady Greyhounds.

Moberly Area again looked to erase the VU lead in the third quarter, using another big 10-0 scoring run to cut the Lady Blazers advantage down to just a single point and head into the fourth quarter trailing Vincennes 43-41.

VU looked to get the momentum back to start the fourth quarter, scoring the first five points of the period to grow the lead back to seven.

Moberly would again battle back and even the score at 51-51 with just 90 seconds remaining. The first time the game had been tied since 2-2.

VU would take the lead back with a pair of free throws before Moberly Area scored at the other end to even the game back at 53-53.

After a timeout by VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Harry Meeks, the Lady Trailblazers looked to set up a buzzer beating shot with 12.9 seconds left but turned the ball over before getting a shot at the end of regulation.

Moberly Area continued to ride their momentum into the overtime period, scoring the first six points of the period and taking their first lead of the game in the process.

Vincennes would again answer back and get the Greyhound lead down to three and later just one point with under a minute to play.

After a Moberly Area miss, the Lady Blazers raced down the court looking to take the lead late or set up a play for a buzzer beater and managed to get two good looks at the basket on layups but were unable to convert either attempt and the Lady Greyhounds came away with the overtime victory 62-61 over the Lady Trailblazers.

VU was led offensively by a big double-double by sophomore Elikya Baseyila (Paris, France), who finished with 18 points, 20 rebounds, a new career-high and four blocks.

Freshman Karina Scott (Noblesville, Ind.) was the only other VU scorer in double-figures, coming away with 12 points on four made three-pointers to go along with eight rebounds and four assists.

Sophomore Johnai Wimbleduff (Indianapolis, Ind.) came off the bench to add nine points in the game, while also grabbing three rebounds and dishing out two assists.

Freshman Taylor Guess (Indianapolis, Ind.) ended with five points and nine rebounds, while fellow freshman Makyla Tucker (Indianapolis, Ind.) ended with six points and four rebounds.

The Lady Trailblazers will look to bounce back next week when VU continues their tour of Missouri to face Jefferson College in Hillsboro, Mo. Wednesday, Dec. 6 at 5 p.m. eastern.

VU will then return home to close out next week against NJCAA Division II No. 7-ranked Parkland College Saturday, Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. eastern.

Evansville, In.:  In a strong bounce-back performance, the Thunderbolts fought hard to earn a split out of the weekend series against Roanoke, defeating the Rail Yard Dawgs 4-2 on Saturday night at Ford Center, in large part due to Chays Ruddy’s pair of second period goals.  The Thunderbolts’ next home game will be on Saturday, December 9^th against the Peoria Rivermen, puck drop at 7:00pm CT.

Opening the scoring for Evansville was Mark Zhukov, off a net-front scramble from Myles Abbate and Bair Gendunov at 7:22 of the first period, the goal also being the first of Zhukov’s professional career.  Roanoke tied the game 5:57 into the second period as Jacob Kelly scored on a rebound opportunity.  Midway through the second period, Ruddy scored his first goal off a set face-off play from Tommy Stang and Matthew Hobbs to give Evansville a 2-1 lead at 11:33.  Replicating the same play, Ruddy scored once again at 16:58, this time from Matt Dorsey and Hobbs, to make it 3-1.  After being denied on a penalty shot attempt in the final minute of the second period, Scott Kirton got on the scoreboard by poking home a loose puck 2:59 into the third period, assisted by Gendunov to make it a 4-1 Evansville lead.  Roanoke got a late goal back from Kelly at 14:20, but the Thunderbolts weathered a late storm from Roanoke, which at one point saw them go up on a 6-on-3 man advantage with goaltender Tyler Roy pulled, as Evansville came out on top 4-2.

Ruddy led the offense with his two goals, while Kirton and Zhukov each finished with one goal.  Gendunov and Hobbs each tallied a pair of assists on the night, while Cole Ceci finished with 39 saves on 41 shots for his 2^nd win of the season.  The Thunderbolts and Rail Yard Dawgs meet once again on Friday, February 16^th at Berglund Center.