Box Score SALEM, VA--The Roanoke College men's basketball team earned a regular season split with the Quakers of Guilford College with a 75-63 win in Salem, VA on Saturday afternoon. The Maroons, who lost to the Quakers 95-81 in Greensboro in January, improve to 15-9 on the season and 10-7 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. Guilford, which has just one win in the past 22 games with the Maroons, fall to 14-10, 9-8 against league opponents. Roanoke also improves to 27-6 all-time versus Guilford.
Save for two ties in the first 2:30 of the contest, the Maroons led for the entire game. It was the Roanoke defense, sparked by the play of senior guard Jaimar Mansel (Akron, OH/St. Vincent-St. Mary), that gave the Maroons control of the game early. Mansel had four of his game-high five steals in the first four-and-a-half minutes of the contest, allowing the Maroons to take a six-point lead (12-6) on a made jumper by Robby Pridgen (Akron, OH/St. Vincent-St. Mary) with 15:19 to play. After Drew Crowder (Radford, VA/Radford) scored five consecutive points midway through the first, the Maroons had a 21-12 lead, their biggest of the half.
Guilford fought to within one (21-20) with six minutes left in the opening frame, but could never tie the score and would go down by as much as seven in the waning minutes of the half. Trailing by four with just 10 seconds to play in the half, the Quakers turned the ball over twice, leading to two Maroon free throws, and went into the break down 33-27. Crowder created one of those turnovers with a steal near midcourt.
After seeing its lead trimmed to three early in the second, following a layup and free throw by GC's Thomas Swindell, the Roanoke would again take command and push the lead to as many as 11. The Quakers cut the lead to six with two minutes to go, but Roanoke closed the game with 10 free throws to take the 12-point victory.
Pridgen finished the game with 23 points to lead the Maroons and now needs just 18 to reach 1,000 for his Roanoke career. Pridgen also added five assists and four rebounds. Foster, despite going just 3-for-12 from the field, finished with 14 points and also added a game-high 10 rebounds. Nate Stewart (Christiansburg, VA/Auburn) was another key defensively, blocking a career-high four shots.
Guilford's Josh Conner scored 14, nine coming in the second half, to lead the scoring column for the Quakers. He also was GC's top rebounder with nine. The Quakers committed 21 turnovers in the game and shot just 56 percent (14-of-25) from the free throw line.
The Maroons end their regular season on Tuesday with a 7:00pm road contest against the Royals of Eastern Mennonite. Roanoke defeated EMU at home 87-75 on January 23rd.
