Men's Basketball Falls To No. 2 Amherst, 103-69
ELMS COLLEGE FALLS TO NO. 2 AMHERST, 103-69
AMHERST, MA, Jan. 16, 2007 - Elms College senior point guard John Ancrum (Harlem, NY) netted a team-high 16 points, but No. 2 Amherst College had four players reach double figures and used a big first half run en route to a 103-69 win over the Blazers in Tuesday night's non-conference men's basketball game at LeFrak Gymnasium.
With the loss, Elms College saw its four-game winning streak snapped as it fell to 8-6.
Amherst, ranked second nationally in the latest D3hoops.com Top 25 Poll, won its program-record 15th straight game to start the season to remain undefeated at 15-0.
Senior forward Dan Wheeler (Bloomington, MN) led all scorers with 19 points and junior center Kevin Hopkins (Greenfield Center, NY) added 18 points as Amherst's top two scorers in the victory.
The Lord Jeffs took control from the opening tip, as they shot a sizzling 87.5-percent from the field in the game's opening eight minutes to scream out to a 35-10 lead.
Amherst, which led by as many as 30 in the first half (47-17) following sophomore forward Brian Baskauskas' (Palo Alto, CA) 3-pointer with 7:43 left, continued its hot shooting for the stanza and led 58-33 at intermission.
Baskauskas, who was named this week's New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Player of the Week, drained all four of his shots in the opening half and had 13 points in just 11 minutes of the half.
Hopkins also reached double figures before halftime, as he dropped in 12 points on 6 of 8 shooting in just nine minutes.
Senior forward David Williams (Hartford, CT) finished with 14 points as the only other Elms College player to reach double figures in the loss.
The Blazers return to North Atlantic Conference (NAC) play to host Becker College on Saturday, January 20. Tip-off is 3:00 p.m.