Posted: Feb 25, 2011
SALEM, Va. -- Second-seeded Randolph-Macon advanced to the ODAC semifinals with a 63-56 quarterfinal victory over the seventh-seeded Maroons of Roanoke College Friday evening at the Salem Civic Center.
Randolph-Macon, ranked eighth in the country, advances to face either Eastern Mennonite or Hampden-Sydney at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday. As for Roanoke (12-15), they doubled last season's win total and earned an ODAC Tournament win for the first time since the 2007-08 season.
R-MC (22-4) was led by Jordan Brown and Danny Jones who each had 13 points in the win. Eric Pugh chipped in with 11 for the Jackets as well. Jones and Brown had eight and seven rebounds, respectively, helping Randolph-Macon to a 39-31 edge on the glass. Jones also paced the R-MC reserves to a 25-9 edge over RC's bench.
Roanoke outscored Randolph-Macon, 10-0 in fast break points and 20-16 in the paint while scoring 24 points off 25 Yellow Jacket turnovers. The Maroons also had 13 steals and hit 16-of-22 (72.7%) from the line.
Despite shooting just 6-of-16 and turning the ball over 13 times, R-MC was able to take a 27-22 lead into the locker room at intermission. RC executed their game plan well and it showed on the scoreboard for most of the first half as the Maroons led for 16 of the first 20 minutes of play.
Upset-minded Roanoke came out and scored 15 of the first 22 points of the game to go up eight, 15-7 midway through the first half.
A situation that possibly shifted momentum from the Maroons was a uniform change that wasn't informed to the scorer's table, which was called a technical foul. That resulted in five Randolph-Macon points which was a conventional three-point play followed by two technical foul shots to make it, 24-19 with 3:12 remaining in the half.
The Jackets came out in the second stanza and pushed ahead by seven points after Brandon Braxton made two free-throws with just over 17-minutes to play in the game.
The Maroons pulled within one after Felix drained a three-pointer to make the score 36-35 with 8:43 to play.
Randolph-Macon, however, scored the next six points to take a 42-35 advantage when Brown knocked down a three-pointer just under eight minutes left.
RC responded with the six unanswered points, again cutting it one on a Poindexter layup with just over six minutes on the clock.
The Yellow Jackets started to pull away, scoring eight of the next nine points to extend their lead to 50-42 on a Pugh bucket with 3:02 to go.
Roanoke simply wouldn't go away as the Maroons cut it to five on a Felix free-throw with 2:15 remaining. But the Jackets, who shot 84% from the line, made 11-of-13 free-throws in the final 1:43 to seal the win.
Logan Singleton led Roanoke with 12 points and 10 rebounds for his seventh double-double of the year. Corey Poindexter scored in double-figures for the fifth time this season with 12 on the night. Kwasi Amponsah finished with 10 counters, his fifth time in double-figures in the final six games of the season.
Melvin Felix finished with 11 points and a game-high six assists in his final game as a Maroon. He finished his career with 1,173 points (23rd all-time), 202 assists (14th all-time), 109 three-pointers (11th all-time) and a 79.5% free-throw percentage (13th all-time).
