ATHENS, W.Va. – The Concord University men's basketball team outscored Charleston 59-30 in the second half on its way to an 89-66 win at the Carter Center Thursday night in Mountain East Conference action.
With the win, the Mountain Lions move to 11-16 on the season and 7-14 in the MEC while Charleston falls to 14-13 overall and 8-13 in the league.
UC took command of the game early as the Mountain Lions never had a lead in the first half, but a late 5-0 run in the final 1:46 of the first half trimmed Concord's deficit to 36-30 at halftime. Sophomore guard
Tommy Bolte converted a layup, and senior guard
Cam Shannon connected on a three-pointer in the quick spurt.
Out of the intermission, Bolte ignited a Concord run that lasted over 10 minutes and saw Concord outscore Charleston by 19 points, 33-14. The Chillicothe, Ohio native scored 17 of his game-high 29 points during the run and rattled off 15 of the first 20 points in the run.
Up 53-48 with 13:19 left in the game, the Mountain Lions connected on three straight three-pointers with one each coming from junior guard
B.J. Hamlet, junior forward
Babe Murphy and senior guard
Aaron Miller. Bolte then helped capped the run with another layup at the 9:42 mark to put Concord up 63-50.
Charleston narrowed the lead to 11 points, but never to single digits for the remainder of the game as CU ran its lead out to 25 points on three different occasions before winning by 23 points.
In the second half, the Mountain Lions shot 68.6 percent (24-for-35) from the field as opposed to Charleston's 35.5 percent in the second half (11-for-31). Also in the final 20 minutes of the game, CU shot 7-for-10 from three-point range.
For the third straight game, Bolte posted a career-best in points. To go with his 29 points, he recorded eight rebounds and six assists while shooting 11-for-16 from the floor, 3-for-4 from three-point range and 4-for-4 from free throw line.
On Senior Night, Miller and senior forward
Stephen Thompson each finished with 15 points. Thompson added eight rebounds. Hamlet came off the bench to provide 11 points as he knocked down three three-pointers.
Concord forced 20 turnovers and turned it into 28 points, the second highest number for CU this season in points off turnovers. The Mountain Lions outscored UC 28-6 in points off turnovers.
Prior to the game, Miller, senior guard
Michael Sanchez, Shannon and Thompson were recognized to a near capacity crowd at the Carter Center.
The Mountain Lions improved their chances to make next week's MEC Tournament. Concord can clinch a berth to postseason by either winning Saturday at UVa.-Wise OR Urbana losing to Notre Dame.
Concord travels to UVa.-Wise 4:00 p.m. Saturday for the regular season finale.
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