FINAL STATS
(BOWIE, MD) Bulldogs Classic MVP Carlos Williams scored a team-high 20 points and dished out a game-high 12 assists, leading Bowie State to a 90-79 victory over Holy Family. The win improves Bowie State to 2-0 on the young season while the Holy Family Tigers record drops to 1-1.
Holy Family jumped out to a 4-0 lead but Bowie State responded with an 8-0 run. BSU's Bulldogs slowly started to pull away before taking a 42-29 advantage with just over three minutes left in the first half. Bowie State knocked down 16 of its 32 first half field goals, which included 8-of-13 from behind the three point line and headed into halftime with a 42-31 lead.
Bowie State surrendered their comfortable halftime lead as the Tigers of Holy Family roared back to cut the deficit to 53-51 by the 13:01 mark of the second half. During that stretch HFU's Michael Sturns had the hot hand, scoring two huge 3-pointers and a pair of free throws. London Houston gave the visitors on their second lead of the game midway through the second period via baseline jumper in front of the Holy Family bench. However, Bowie State's Anthony Ivory (aka The Big Show) popped a jumper from the top of the key to shift the advantage back to BSU at 57-56. From that point, Bowie State stretched their lead up to eight points (64-56 and again at 75-67) before pulling away for good to account for the final margin of victory.
Holy Family was led by Sturns with a game-high 30 points and a team-high seven rebounds. Ryan Lancaster and Quincy Marshall scored in double figures as well for the Tigers, adding 20 and 10 points respectively. As a team, Holy Family ended the game with a 39.7% shooting percentage (27-of-68) and made 17 of 24 free throws (70.0%).
Besides Williams' point production, Bowie State's David Paris played his best game in a Bulldogs uniform, scoring 17 points and hauled down a game-high nine rebounds. Joshua Johnson recorded a career-high six blocked shots to go along with 14 points. Orlando Wright came off the Bowie State bench and scored 12 points, hitting 4 of 8 field goals, which included 3 of 5 from behind the arc.
The Classic coaches and media representatives selected BSU's Williams and Johnson as members of the All-Classic Team along with Sturns and Lancaster of Holy Family and Andy Heimbach of East Stroudsburg.
Bowie State committed 17 turnovers compared to just eight for Holy Family. The key to the Bowie State victory had to be its field goal shooting (59.2% for the game) and superb free throw shooting, 14 of 15 (93.3%).
Bowie State will return to action – Wednesday (11/21) at Columbia Union College, play its first conference game at Livingstone (11/27) then travel to NYC's Madison Square Garden to play their first CIAA divisional game against Virginia Union (12/1).
