Box Score The Stetson Hatters dominated the Lipscomb Bisons on their way to an 80-59 victory. This win puts Stetson at 5-2 in conference play.
"We won the game on the defensive end tonight," said Head Coach
Donnie Jones. "How we competed, rebounded, and guarding the three-point line, were huge to our victory.
The Hatters took an early 5-0 lead on an alley-oop by
Aubin Gateretse from
Stephan Swenson and a three from
Jalen Blackmon. The Bisons rallied quickly tying the game at five. Gateretse scored the next bucket for the Hatters with his first career three pointer on his second career attempt. Stetson continued hitting their shots pulling away to make it 23-14. Lipscomb went on another short 5-0 run, but the Hatters answered with a 15-0 run of their own. During that run Blackmon scored six, Swenson had 4,
Tristan Gross hit a three and
Alec Oglesby cashed in on a pull up jumper. With the score 38-19,
Treyton Thompson would grab and offensive rebound before putting it home for a layup that was called off for goaltending. At the media timeout the referees went over to the replay monitored and saw that it was not goaltending, awarding Thompson with the bucket. The Hatters continued to pull away as they went into halftime up 45-27. That was the most points for the Hatters in the first half since the start of ASUN play this season.
In the second half, Stetson picked up right where they left off. Gateretse had back-to-back possession where he worked himself wide open in the paint. Swenson found him both times and Gateretse slammed them home making it 51-30. The Hatters kept growing their lead all the way up to 27 when Blackmon drained a shot from outside the arc making it 59-32. With 2:30 left to go in the game, Coach Jones took out his starters.
Naeem Lewis scored four of the last six points on a turnaround jumper and then a floater in the paint. The Hatters went on to win 80-59.
Blackmon led the way for the Hatters coring 17 points while shooting 50% from the field, and beyond the arc while going 1-1 from the free-throw line. Swenson and Oglesby weren't far behind him as they finished with 15 and 14 respectively. Swenson was one assist shy of finishing with what would have been back-to-back double-doubles. Gateretse was the fourth Hatter in double figures putting up 11 points. Thompson finished with a team leading 8 rebounds with Blackmon and Swenson snagging eight a piece.
"It really started with our defense, which led to transitions and getting some easy shots. That's what our main focus was going into this game. We knew Lipscomb is a really good offensive team, so we wanted to keep them off the three-point line and try to make them play as much 1 on 1 as possible."
As a team the Hatters went 30-55 from the field, 9-19 from three and 11-16 from the stripe. They outrebounded the Bisons 42-27 and only allowed 5 second chance points.
Stetson will look to extend their win streak as they embark on a three-game road trip. They will start with North Alabama on Thursday, Feb. 1 at 8:45pm.
