FINAL STATS
(BOWIE, MD) Elizabeth City State and Bowie State entered tonight's key CIAA match-up riding win streak. The division leading ECSU Vikings had won 13 consecutive games while BSU's Bulldogs were on a six-game winning streak. In the end, Bowie State University prevailed 78-66 over Elizabeth City State University. With the win, Bowie State improves its record to 19-7 overall, 13-5 in the CIAA and 5-3 in the Eastern Division. What made this game even more interesting is the fact the Elizabeth City State was ranked sixth the last Division II South Atlantic Region Poll released (2/13) and Bowie State was eighth. The loss moves Elizabeth City State to 20-5 on the season, 13-4 in the CIAA and 5-2 in the East.
Bowie State jumped out to a 4-0 before Elizabeth City State's Anthony Butler scored the Vikings' first points three minutes into the contest. Matt Nowlin gave Elizabeth City State their first and only lead of the evening at 5-4 at the 16:19 mark of the opening period. Bowie State senior Jason Ingram began an 8-0 Bulldogs run, holding Elizabeth City State without a field goal for almost six minutes. Butler stopped the Vikings drought with his second 3-point field goal of the period. Unfortunately for ECSU, BSU would outscore the Vikings 22-7 to take a commanding 34-15 lead by the 4:13 mark. Tough Bowie State defense held Elizabeth City State to 12-of-34 shooting from the field (35.3 percent) and allowed BSU's Bulldogs to stroll into halftime with a 41-30 lead.
The defending CIAA Champion Vikings would not go away quietly, cutting the Bowie State lead down to seven points (53-46) by the 13:31 mark of the second half. However on this night, Bowie State was the better team, lowering the Vikings shooting percentage to 29.4 percent in the second half. Bowie State's field goal shooting cooled off a little in the final 20 minutes, dropping from 50 percent in the first half to 41.2 percent.
Senior David Paris paced Bowie State with 20 points on nine-of-11 shooting from the field and gathered seven rebounds. Ingram and fellow senior Orlando Wright scored 16 and 15 points respectively for the Bulldogs and sophomore Christian Jackson netted 12 points. BSU's Joshua Johnson swatted away five of the Bulldogs' season-high 10 blocked shots.
Anthony Hilliard led Elizabeth City State with 20 points before fouling out of the contest. Other double figure scorers for Elizabeth City State include Butler with 16 points and Nowlin with 10 points.
Bowie State will close out the regular season – Saturday, February 23rd versus the Pioneers of Columbia Union College. Game time is 7:30 p.m. in BSU's A.C. Jordan Arena.
