ANDERSON, S.C. – Senior Garrett Denbow (Ashland, Ohio) eclipsed the 1,000-point mark in his career with 15 points on the day as the Anderson University (13-10, 8-7 SAC) men's basketball team downed the Saints of Limestone University (10-14, 6-9 SAC) by a final score of 84-75 on Wednesday, February 14 in the Abney Athletic Center.
Sophomore Cole Middleton (Atlanta, Ga.) posted a game-high 18 points to go with his ten rebounds in the game. Senior Mack Burgett (Richmond, Va.) turned in the coveted triple double as he was able to score 14 points, corral 10 boards and dish out 11 assists. Sophomore Austin Webb (South Point, Ohio) posted 16 points in the contest while fellow sophomore Luke Denbow (Ashland, Ohio) added 12 to the Trojans tally. Freshman AJ Wright Jr. (Tampa, Fla.) added to his fantastic assist numbers on the year with six on the night.
The first half of the contest was all trojans as they were able to open the night on an 8-2 run before the first stoppage in play. By the next scheduled stoppage, the Trojans had further extended their advantage out to 19-4. Limestone finally was able to find a little rhythm offensively over the next four minutes of action as they were able to go even with the Trojans over that stretch, which both squads recording seven points in that time frame to leave it a 26-11 with 7:41 to play in the first.
Shortly after that stoppage was when Denbow recorded his fourth point of the contest, the mark he needed to hit 1,000 points for his career as the Trojans continued to build their advantage to 39-15 with just 2:36 to play in the opening half. That was nearly where the score would stand heading into the break as both teams only recorded three points each over the final minutes to give Anderson the 42-18 lead at the half.
It looked as though the second half of the contest would be much like the first as the Trojans came out and boosted their lead to as many as 27 before holding a 25-point advantage at the under-16 media timeout. But Limestone was not going away quietly as they slowly started to chip away at the Anderson lead, bringing it just 19 at the next stoppage.
With 7:45 remaining in the contest, the Saints continued to close the gap to 16-points while Anderson was throwing everything they could at Limestone to stymie the attack, but the Saints continued to press the pace and with 6:02 to play they had brought the Trojans lead to single digits. However, Anderson was able to keep that lead steady around that margin for the remainder of the game, only allowing it to dip as low as seven on one single occasion before wrapping up the 84-75 win.
Anderson returns to action on February 17 as they travel to Jefferson City, Tenn. to take on the Eagles of Carson-Newman in a 4:00 p.m. match-up.
