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Press Release written by Nathan Foltz
NEWARK, Del. - - The Wilmington University men's basketball team rode a strong second-half defensive effort to a victory over Chestnut Hill on Tuesday, defeating the Griffins 79-64 at the WU Athletics Complex in a Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference matchup.
The result flips the two teams in the CACC standings, as Wilmington now sits in seventh place with a 3-4 conference record (7-8 overall), and Chestnut Hill is in tenth out of eleven schools with their 2-4 conference mark (4-9 overall). The top eight teams qualify for the conference tournament, but there are still almost two full months of conference games left to play in the regular season.
Jaiden Guy opened the scoring with a free throw, but after going up 1-0, the Wildcats wouldn't lead for another 11 minutes. Trailing 20-8, Guy kick-started a 15-2 run with a layup that was finished by Akeem Taylor's jumper, giving the Wildcats the edge 23-22. Wilmington's largest lead of the first half came a few minutes later when Taylor made it 33-26, but Chestnut Hill closed the gap to two to make it 37-35 in favor of the home team at halftime.
From there, what seemed to be a close game slowly became a comfortable win for Wilmington as they never gave the lead back to the Griffins. Jaylin Horsey finally got the difference to ten points on a three-pointer with about five minutes to play, and over the final 3:48, Wilmington outscored Chestnut Hill 11-5 to put it away. The Griffins only got off five shots from the field in the final five minutes, making two of them.
The easy final few minutes were a welcome change of pace for Wilmington. Coming into the contest, nine of the Wildcats' 14 games featured a scoring difference of three points or fewer in the final minute of regulation. Of those nine games, six had turned into Wilmington losses, and two of them were against conference opponents (at Jefferson and against Felician).
Five Wildcats reached double-digit point totals in the game, led by Akeem Taylor off the bench with 19. Taylor also finished tied with Jaiden Guy (16 points) and Tre Hawkins (10 points) for the team lead of six rebounds. Denim Perkins had a good day shooting as well, going 5-6 from the floor (including 3-4 from beyond the arc) for 13 points while dishing out his customary healthy dose of assists with five. Jaylin Horsey had ten points, and Zavion Bianchini pulled down five rebounds in his second consecutive start.
The Wildcats have a long layoff before their next game, which will come on the road at Holy Family next Wednesday. That game will begin at approximately 8:00 P.M. following the women's contest.
