Jonathan Swift drives to the rim against Concordia - MU defeats Aquinas 72-65
Kelly Cieslak - KeepersbyKelly.com
72
Winner Madonna MUMB 21-8, 14-5 WHAC
65
Aquinas AQM 6-22, 5-13 WHAC
Winner
Madonna MUMB
21-8, 14-5 WHAC
72
Final
65
Aquinas AQM
6-22, 5-13 WHAC
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Madonna MUMB 37 35 72
Aquinas AQM 30 35 65

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | Zachary Shore

Burton, Reynolds, Swift lead @MUCrusadersMBB to wire-to-wire win

THE BASICS
Score: #RV Madonna 72, Aquinas College 65
Record: MU (21-8, 14-5 WHAC), AQ (6-22, 5-13 WHAC)
Location: Sturrus Center - Grand Rapids, Mich.
 

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Madonna University men's basketball team withstood a late run and led start to finish in a 72-65 win over Aquinas College on Wednesday night. The win, coupled with a Cornerstone University loss, puts the Crusaders one game behind the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference leading Golden Eagles, tied with Indiana Tech, whom the Blue and Gold beat twice this season.

Jonathan Swift converted a layup, Dwight Burton followed with five points to give the Crusaders a 7-2 lead. Madonna slowly built the lead to a first-half high 11, 20-9, on a KJ Sayer layup, but the Saints quickly answered and cut the lead to five on multiple occasions, but Madonna responded by pushing the lead back to 10, the last coming with 38 seconds to play in the half on an Antonio Capaldi 3-pointer. Aquinas hit a trey just before the half to cut the lead to seven, 37-30.

A Joshua Reynolds 3-pointer began the second half and sparked MU to an 11-2 run, which included six points from Burton, to push the lead to 16, 48-32. The run was part of a 22-9 run over the first 9:12 of the final 20 minutes that pushed the lead to a game-high 20 points, 59-39 at the 10:49 mark. The Saints battled back with a 24-8 run over the next 9:38 to cut the advantage to four, 67-63 with 1:11 to play, A Burton layup and a pair of Reynolds free throws pushed the lead back to eight and Swift hit a free throw with six seconds left for the final score.

TURNING POINT
  • A 22-9 Madonna run over 9:12 to begin the second half
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
  • Burton finished with a game-hight 21 points and added five rebounds while Reynolds tallied 17 points and a team-best seven rebounds. Swift added 13 points while Clarke Lamb grabbed six boards.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
  • The Crusaders won in the paint (32-26) and scored more second chance points (14-8) than the Saints
  • Madonna grabbed one more rebound (36-35) than Aquinas in the contest and shot an impressive 50 percent (25-of-50) from the field while the defense limited the Saints to 37.3 percent (22-of-59) shooting in the contest
UP NEXT
  • The Crusaders wrap up the regular season with a trip to Sylvania, Ohio to face Lourdes University on Saturday, Feb. 16 at 3 p.m. With a win, Madonna will capture the No. 2 seed in the WHAC tournament next week.
  • Live video will be available here with stats available here.
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