West Virginia daily

MOUNT VERNON— The Ashland Eagles took full advantage of a slow start by the Mount Vernon Nazarene University men's basketball team in the second half as they defeated MVNU, 94-88. That slow start included the Cougars going the first nine minutes of the second half without making a shot from the field. That put them in a hole from which they would never fully be able to recover.

After falling behind 5-0, the Cougars got the offense rolling as they went on a 16-4 run to take the lead early in the first half of play, getting eight of those points from Mark Hess. MVNU was able to stretch the lead to eight points as they went up 25-17 with 11:17 in the first half. The Eagles fought back and went up by one off a three-points shot by Greg Emmons with just over a minute left in the half. Ashland added two more 3-pointers in the last minute to go into halftime with a 45-42 lead.

Things went south for the Cougars offense in the beginning of the second half. MVNU was only able to get nine points in the first nine minutes, all coming off of free throws, and Ashland was able to stretch its lead to 63-50. Ben Falkenberg was then able to get things going for MVNU as his 3-pointer and lay-up on two consecutive possessions seemed to wake up the offense. The Cougars continued to use their effective foul shooting and were able to pull within three with just over four minutes left in the game. That would be as close as they would get, however, as Ashland seemed to have an answer for the Cougars the rest of the way. Vahn Knight and Brett Bartlett scored the last 10 points for the Eagles, all coming from free throws to secure the victory.

"We started slow in the second period. That first five minutes is really important, and we just dug ourselves into a hole," MVNU coach Scott Flemming said. "We're a very good team physically. I think mentally we have a little ways to go. We made some mistakes tonight. Our defense broke down a little bit. We couldn't make the big play to go up when we got close."

The game was a bit of a homecoming for Hess as he played against the Eagles, which are located in his hometown. On the other side of the court was his former teammate Emmons. The two combine for 51 points on the evening.

"It's always great to play against Ashland," Hess said. "They're my hometown team. It was especially nice to play with Greg (Emmons). We've played ball together our whole life."

"We've come a long way from last year," noted Flemming. "Some years I would feel good about this, but I think if we had done some things differently, we could have pulled it out."

Ben Falkenberg led the Cougars with 24 points off of the bench. Connor Gregg and Andrew Thompson both reached double figures for the Cougars, as they each had ten on the night. Senior point guard Alan Bock added eight points and ten assists. The Cougars will return to action on Saturday as they head to West Virginia for a nonconference match-up with Ohio Valley University at 3 p.m.

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