Jan. 24, 2009

Box Score

Garden City, N.Y. - The Adelphi University men's basketball team played host to Concordia College in an East Coast Conference contest on Saturday, January 24. The Panthers committed just four turnovers in the first half, building a 33-21 halftime edge on the way to a 73-56 win. With the victory Adelphi improves to 12-5 overall and 6-2 in the ECC, while Concordia falls to 5-13 overall and 3-5 in conference play.

Adelphi jumped on Concordia early, opening the game with a 16-0 run that lasted the first 7:07 of play. The run was sparked by a Sky Khaleel lay-up and featured too deep triples from Casey Cosgrove. Concordia answered right back with a 15-3 run, that was capped by a Kenny Gaskins lay-up that cut the Panther lead to just three, 18-15, with 8:41 left in the half.

From there Adelphi turned up the defensive pressure, holding the Clippers to just six points in the remaining minutes of the first half, while scoring 15 points of their own, giving the Panthers a 33-21 lead at the half. Seven of Adelphi's 15 points were scored by Richard Byrd, including a jumper and a three to start the run.

Concordia cut in to Adelphi's on two occasions early in the second half, pulling to within single digits, 33-24, with 18:58 to play and again, 35-27, with 17:03 on the clock. However, that was as close as the Clippers would get as Adelphi blew the game wide open with a 13-1 run that featured buckets from four different players, including five points from David Akinyooye and gave the Panthers a 20 point lead, 48-28.

The Clippers hung tough late, getting as close as 10 points, 60-50, with 5:39 on the clock, but Adelphi put the game away using a 9-0 run that pushed the margin to 19, 69-59, with 1:58 on the clock.

Daniel Olsen led the Clippers with 14 points and a game high 12 rebounds, while Gaskins chipped in 11 points.

Byrd poured in a game-high 23 points and added seven rebounds, while Khaleel scored 12 points and pulled down eight misses. Cosgrove scored nine points and handed out a game-high eight assists in the win.

The Panthers return to action on Wednesday, January 28 when they travel to Brookville, New York for a 7:30 pm meeting with C.W. Post.