Feb. 28, 2004

Box Score

Charleston, SC - Sophomore guard Dante Terry connected on five-of-eight three pointers and scored 21 points to help The Citadel defeat Georgia Southern, 68-65, in Southern Conference basketball action Saturday afternoon in McAlister Field House.

"This is a great win for our guys and Max Mombollet in his last game in McAlister," Citadel head coach Pat Dennis exclaimed. "Our guys have played extremely hard all year and they have definitely had their share of bumps and bruises. It is great to see us win a couple here late." The Citadel (6-21, 2-14 SoCon) got out of the blocks in a hurry as it jumped out on a 10-2 run to start the game. Senior forward Max Mombollet started the run as he connected on two free throws at 18:23 and sophomore guard Kevin Hammack ended it as he connected on a three-pointer with 16:50 remaining in the first half.

Georgia Southern (20-7, 11-5 SoCon) responded with their own 10-2 run to tie the game at 12 as junior forward Jean Francois hit a jumper at the 11:27 mark. The Eagles pushed their advantage to 20-14 as sophomore guard Elton Nesbit scored five unanswered points.

The Bulldogs rebounded and regained the lead at the half by a score of 34-31. The Citadel led a majority of the game as they held the lead for over 31 minutes. The lead was never larger than seven points in the second stanza and Georgia Southern cut the Bulldogs lead with 1:17 remaining to 64-63 as Nesbit connected on another three-pointer. Following a 30-second timeout by The Citadel, Francois intercepted the inbounds pass and converted a lay-up to give the Eagles their first lead in over 24 minutes at 65-64.

The Bulldogs responded as freshman forward J'mel Everhart blocked a lay-up by GSU's Frank Bennett, while Hammack rebounded the block and pushed up court for the fast break. Hammack missed a lay-up, Everhart grabbed an offensive rebound and missed a lay-up, before Mombollet could grab the offensive carom and converted the lay-up to give The Citadel its final advantage at 66-65 with 18 seconds remaining. Terry was fouled and converted two more free throws with five seconds remaining to preserve the victory.

"Their zone forced us to take a bunch of threes and we just didn't hit our shots," GSU head coach Jeff Price stated. "They played a tough game and we can't take that away from them."

Joining Terry in double-figures scoring for the Bulldogs was Everhart with 16 and Hammack with 15. Mombollet grabbed 10 rebounds and ended with nine points, one tally away from the double-double.

Bennett who scored 15 and grabbed seven rebounds and Francois who scored 14 led Georgia Southern offensively. Nesbit was the only other Eagle in double-figures with 11 points.

The Citadel enters the Southern Conference tourney with the sixth seed, a two-game win streak and will play in the second game of the first session on Wednesday against the winner of the Elon-UNC Greensboro game. Georgia Southern enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed in the South and will play the winner of the first round game between Wofford and the fourth seed from the North division. Game time is scheduled for 6:00 pm.