St. Joe's knocks off Coppin

by Keith Henry

PHILADELPHIA- The Coppin State Eagles hurt themselves severely with untimely turnovers and the St. Joseph's Hawks took advantage in a 81-72 win over the Eagles Wednesday night at Hagan Arena.

One of head coach Fang Mitchell's defensive rules is to seek & shut down their main perimeter shooter.

Coppin got blitzed early by their main three-point threat in Langston Galloway, who converted four shots from above the three-point arc for the night and scored 18 points for the game for St. Joe's.

Inside the paint, St. Joe's forward C.J. Aiken had a dunk show inside the paint, leading the Hawks with 20 points on the night. Most were either on rebound dunks or back door plays that resulted in dunks.

The Hawks scored on their first four possessions to take a 10-5 lead about three minutes into the game. But the Eagles' defense provided some answers later on and the Eagles eventually took a one-point lead (23-22) with 7:29 left on a three-pointer from Ellis.

St. Joseph's (9-3) took over after that, outscoring the Eagles 15-5 to close out the first half on three straight series of alley-oop dunks from forward Hanil Kanacevic to Aiken and three-point jumpers from Chris Wilson, Carl Jones and Galloway respectively to give the Hawks the 37-28 advantage at halftime.

After a lay-up from Logan Weins, St. Joe's began to show off by scoring the next seven points. Daryus Quarles converted a three, then Kanacevic made a lay-up, and Jones closed out the run on a short jumper with 17:35 left to extend the lead on Coppin to 44-30.

The lead for the Hawks would get as big as 15 on three occasions. The last being a 62-47 advantage with 8:56 remaining on a three from Quarles. But Coppin State (4-7) answered with a jumper from Michael Harper, a three-pointer from Michael Murray and a jumper from Ellis to cut the deficit to 62-54 with 6:21 left in regulation.