Dec. 20, 2008
Final Stats | Quotes | Notes
Contact: Ryan Mulford
Cleveland, OH - The Vikings had no problem taking care of La Roche by a 26 point margin, 72-46, Saturday (12/20) at the Wolstein Center.
"This program is moving in a direction where we are adding youth to the program and that helps," head coach Gary Waters said. "I am trying to get the younger players to play with the veterans and its time to start doing that more."
"Practice is what makes you play well in the game and if you don't practice hard, you don't play well in the game," Waters said. "It's also about execution and we had to execute on offense and defense."
The Vikings were led by J'Nathan Bullock who scored 18 points, while Cedric Jackson added four assists.
La Roche got the scoring started with two point jump shot from David Culp, which would be their only scoring for the next three minutes.
The Vikings got out to an early lead and never looked back. In just 10 minutes, Cleveland State pulled out to a 12 point lead 19-7.
The Vikings got on the board after one minute of play with a Cedric Jackson free throw, followed by three points from D'Aundray Brown.
J'Nathan Bullock had the hot hand early on in the first half, accounting for 10 of the Vikings first 19 points. Bullock made four of his first five shots including two of three from behind the three point line.
La Roche was able to string a short lived comeback together at the end of the first half scoring seven straight points to cut the Viking lead to eight points with 3:52 remaining.
With the Redhawks threatening, Bullock took control scoring eight of the final 12 points for the Vikings in the first half.
The Vikings led after the first half by a score of 36-19. They were able to capitalize on La Roche mistakes, scoring 17 points off turnovers and nine second chance shots.
The second half was no different. Brown came out of the locker rooms hot draining his first three shots of the half, giving the Vikings a 21 point lead.
With just over 16 minutes left in the game, La Roche was able to narrow the gap to 20 points, the closest they would get the rest of the game.
Norris Cole chipped in nine points, including a run of seven straight points for the Vikings, giving them a comfortable 26 point lead with nine minutes left.
For the game, the Vikings shot 43.8% from the floor and 56.3% from the free throw line. The Vikings were able to capitalize, scoring 25 points off of La Roche turnovers throughout the course of the game.
La Roche was led by Steve Lucas who scored seven points. For a team, the Redhawks shot 36.7% from the floor and 54.5% from the free throw line.
"The Kent State game is big for us because we are on a track and we don't want to get off track as we get ready for league play. This is going to be a tough league this year with a lot of tough teams and every game is going to mean something," Waters said. "Even this game, we are playing to help us in our league. We have our work cut out against them and have to play well on both ends of the court."
The Vikings will be back in action Tuesday night, December 23 against Kent State. Action is set to being at 7:00 p.m. at the Wolstein Center.
