Box Score The Maryville College men's basketball team kicked their 2012-2013 season off in style with a quality win over a strong NCAA Division III South Region rival Centre College by the score of 60-50 in MC's Boydson Baird Gymnasium on Thursday evening.
Maryville's intense defense kept the Colonels to a 28% shooting effort in the first half while the Scots connected on 32% of their attempts. The strong early rebounding from Christian Ford limited Centre's second shot attempts and the Scots went to the intermission with a 26-25 advantage.
Centre's perimeter game went cold in the second half and MC took advantage of the Colonels' dozen turnovers to pull away. Although Maryville hit only 27% of their shots in the second half, their three-point attack led by Wes Lambert allowed the Scots some room to pull away.
Maryville (1-0) out rebounded Centre 46-39 and 15-9 on the offensive glass.
Centre (0-1) was paced by Josh Karsner's 20 points on 60% three-point shooting. He also led the Colonels in rebounding with nine. Tyler Wesley added 10 rebounds to help the visitors from Kentucky.
The Scots had three players finish with double digit scoring. Wes Lambert was 4-for-10 from beyond the arc and 5-for-13 from the field to finish with 18 points. Christian Ford posted a double-double from the point guard position after pulling down a game-high 12 rebounds and sinking 10 points. Oscar Butler deposited 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting. Isaac Mbimi and Jose Agosto added eight and six rebounds respectively.
MC now holds an 8-6 advantage over Centre in their last 14 meetings. Today's win snaps a two game losing streak the Scots had during their recent challenges with the Colonels.
Maryville will return to the court on Monday when they host Johnson University. Tip-off is slated for 7:00 p.m. on Randy Lambert Court.
