UNIVERSITY CENTER, Mich. - The Saginaw Valley State University men's basketball team welcomed Grace Bible College to O'Neill Arena Tuesday night (Nov. 26) for a non-conference matchup. Leading by just two points at the half, the Cardinals outscored the Tigers by a score of 60-38 in the closing half to finish with a 97-73 victory.
The first half was closely-contested throughout, with the largest lead coming at the 5:27 mark when a layup from sophomore guard Damon Bozeman put the Cardinals up 25-18. The Tigers would work their way back from that deficit and cut the lead to 37-35 entering the halftime break when Jared Bradford hit a running floater to beat the buzzer.
Grace Bible out-rebounded the Cardinals in the first half by a margin of 21-9. Both teams shot right around 50% from the field in the opening half, with SVSU posting a 51.9% and the Tigers shooting an even 50.0%.
Bozeman and freshman guard Garrett Hall both had eight points to lead the team offensively in the opening half. Senior guard Michael Fugate had a game-high five assists for SVSU entering the half.
The Tigers knotted the contest right away in the second half, using a pair of Cameron Cramer freebies to make the score 37-37.
That's as close as Grace would get, however, as SVSU extended its lead from there, with the largest margin of 24 coming with the final score after freshman Jon Marosi drained his fourth three-pointer of the night with just three seconds remaining.
Bozeman was named the Meijer "Player of the Game" for the second-consecutive contest, as he tallied a game-high 22 points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals.
Freshman Garrett Hall tied his career-high with 18 points, going 5-of-8 from the floor and 4-of-6 from beyond the arc.
Junior guard Lindsey Johnson added 13 points in the victory, as he knocked-down three triples on seven attempts.
Marosi recorded a career-high with 12 points, shooting 4-of-5 from downtown in just five minutes off the bench.
Fugate finished with a game-high nine assists to go along with six points, four rebounds and a pair of steals.
Sophomore guard Kellen Smith also had nine helpers and four points, three boards and two steals.
Saginaw Valley improves to 4-0 overall on the 2013-14 season while the Tigers fall to 3-7 overall. The Cardinals will be back in action on Thursday, December 5th, as they play host to Ohio Dominican for an 8:00 pm contest as both teams open Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play.