BALTIMORE, Md. – The men's basketball team took their first chip to the armor as host Johns Hopkins who had been knocking on the door of the Top 25 outscored the Blazers in the final minutes with a final score of 93-89 on Tuesday night.
Inside the Box Score
Jevon Yarbrough (Hagerstown, Md./Williamsport) marks his third 30-point game of the season with 36 points and 60 percent from the field.
Kullen Robinson (Alexandria, Va./Alexandria City) went 7-for-11 from the field with 17 points.
Garrett Cox (Glen Allen, VA/Glen Allen) grabbed six boards and drained three shots beyond the arc for his 12-point night.
How it Happened
The squad look to create the gap from beyond the arc and were doing just that with three-straight and asked Hopkins if they were willing to shoot their way out of the hole.
The Blue Jays fought back with the second-chance ball with although good close out attempts from the defensive unit of Hood, they would turn into a bucket via free throws or misread second look of the offense to lose their edge.
When both sides stalled in the stat column in the middle of the first, Cox lined up for three at the top of the arc and sunk it to put the Blazers on a scoring run. The hosts responded at the end of the shot clock with a pump fake a three at the buzzer to swing the game neck and neck.
Ryan Cain's squad started to slow down the game and sped it up when needed, taking advantage of the transition and broken plays rather than showing explosiveness at the beginning of possessions.
The game went back-and-forth waiting for it to be taken, Robinson and Yarbrough turned the flashy play on and created a 7-0 run to lead by six heading into the final eight minutes.
Later a 7-0 run including a surprise pull-up three and what would be a four-point play with an And 1 by Hopkins' Jeb Williams and rebounded and later scored by none other than Charlie Jackson loosening the Blazer grip.
The Blue Jays shot over 50 percent in the half by the way of the three that kept the electricity in the building no matter how the Blazers chipped away.
Eglinton Manner dropped a three in the bucket to pull within one, the next possession he dished to the hot hand of Swint while creating a screen all to give the Blue Jays the lead at the one-minute mark.
The final minute consisted of Blazers trying to push the envelope in the paint and coughed up two turnovers in the heart of the defense for time to run out.
Although the Blazers fall in the final minutes, they force the opposition to play a perfect hand. Slowly playing better defense to prevent them from having to shoot the lights out every game but this round didn't find the right ratio.
"Two good teams trading blows, but we just fell apart a little bit in crunch time and made some bad decisions," said head coach
Chad Dickman. "Hopkins shot it about as well as they can shoot it, and we still had a chance to win the game. Tough way to lose your first game, but we'll learn from it and use it as fire moving forward."
For the Opponent
Teagan Swint hit six three pointers at a 75 percent clip.
Charlie Jackson continued his scoring success with 24 points and a rebound shy of a double-double.
Up Next
The squad wraps up the December home slate with a matchup against Shenandoah on Thursday the 11
th in Woodsboro Bank Arena with a tip-off of 4 p.m.. The Hornets are 6-0 on the season thus far.
