Faulkner rolls over William Carey
December 13
Faulkner raced to a 10-2 lead out of the gate and never trailed William Carey, bouncing the Crusaders 73-60 Saturday afternoon.
The Eagles (8-4) earned a measure of redemption with the victory, having lost 86-67 to William Carey in Hattiesburg, Miss., two weeks ago. The game was played at Auburn Montgomery's Physical Education Complex due to graduation ceremonies on the Faulkner campus.
Faulkner made eight of its first 12 shots from the field as the early lead ballooned to 21-6 on a Reggie Dupree basket at the 10:43 mark of the first half. The Eagles led 40-26 at halftime, having connected on 56 percent of their field goal attempts. In building the commanding advantage, the Eagles forced 16 Crusader turnovers while committing only six of their own.
The closest William Carey could get in the second half was nine points at 54-45 at the 8:53 mark, but Faulkner went on a 13-4 run over the next four minutes to put the game away.
"I thought we really played hard and well today,'' Faulkner head coach Jim Sanderson said. "We wanted to get to the holiday break on a good note and I thought we did that today. We changed some things up defensively from the first time we played them, and it enabled us to control the game today. I'm really proud of our guys for their effort.''
Faulkner was paced by the 19 points and five rebounds from junior forward Randell Moore. Andrew Williams added 13 points for the Eagles, while Reggie Dupree chipped in 11 and Josh Gholston 10. William Carey (4-4) got 20 points from Marcus Spann, 12 from Dexter Middleton and 10 from Terry Wade.
The Eagles are back in action on Jan. 3 at 2 p.m. when it hosts Southern States Athletic Conference rival Southern Wesleyan at Tine Davis Gymnasium.