BOWIE, Md. – Bowie State Bulldogs men's basketball led from start to finish on Saturday afternoon and bowled over the Vikings of Elizabeth City State 85-71 to close out the regular season for both teams. The win sets Bowie State's overall mark at 13-14 overall, 8-8 in league play and 6-4 in the North.
 
Leading the attack for Bowie State's Bulldogs were redshirt sophomore David Belle (Hyattsville, Md.) with 16 points followed by sophomore Yohance Fleming (Bowie, Md.) with 12 points. Senior Omari George chipped in 11 points in his Bulldogs' home finale and fellow senior Ahmaad Wilson (Baltimore, Md.) added 10 points.
 
Justin Faison (Waldorf, Md.) recorded a game-high 24 points with 15-of-17 coming at the free throw line to pace all Elizabeth City State (12-14, 5-11 CIAA, 3-7 North) scorers. Shyheid Pettaway (Raleigh, N.C.) finished with 10 points in the loss and Zaccheus Hobbs (Maysville, N.C.) and Charles Woods (Washington, D.C.) were responsible for eight points each for the Vikings.
 
Bowie State finished the contest shooting 50.8 percent from the field (32-of-63), which included 19-of-31 (61.3 percent) in the first half of play. However, the Bulldogs shot just 57.1 percent at the charity stripe, making 16-of-28.
 
On the top half of the stat sheet, Elizabeth City State (12-14, 5-11 CIAA, 3-7 North) finished the game with a shooting percentage of 40.7, which included 3-of-17 (17.6 percent) behind the arc and the Vikings made 24-of-32 free throws (75 percent).
 
Elizabeth City State led for 50 seconds of the contest on a John Maynor (Raeford, N.C.) jumper at the 19:10 mark of the first half. Unfortunately for the Vikings the Bowie State Bulldogs went on a 9-1 run to seize control of the game and never looked back after that.
 
The Bulldogs cruised into halftime with a 51-29 cushion and the Bowie State lead ballooned to a game-high 29 points twice in the second half.
 
Bowie State held advantages in points in the paint (50-36), points off turnovers (22-8), second chance points 13-10 and bench points 49-44.
 
Bowie State men's basketball enter the CIAA Tournament as the #2 Seed in the North and receive a bye to the quarterfinals. The Bulldogs will await the winner of the Livingstone (#3 South) versus Elizabeth City State (#6 South) before hitting the Spectrum Center court on Thursday (3/1) night at 9 p.m.