Brunswick, Ga. – The College of Coastal Georgia men's basketball team got a big win Saturday over Truett-McConnell at Howard Coffin Gym.
The 85-63 win over the Bears in Southern States Athletic Conference play was actually big in more ways than one, too.
First off, the 22-point final margin was the largest by the Mariners (6-18 overall, 4-9 SSAC) in a victory this season. Previously, the six-point difference in the 104-98 victory at home over Southern Wesleyan in double-overtime on Jan. 17 had been the largest for Coastal Georgia this season.
Of course, the victory came with Coastal Georgia celebrating Homecoming this weekend, making it a special win as well.
But most important was that the victory kept the Mariners in fourth place in the SSAC East Division as they are locked in a battle to stay in the top five in the division and earn a berth in the conference tournament at the end of the month.
The Mariners entered Saturday's game tied with Southern Poly for fourth. A win by Coastal Georgia coupled with the Hornets' loss on Saturday to Emmanuel gave the Mariners sole possession of fourth in the standings for the moment.
Also, the Mariners took a two-game lead in the loss column over both Truett-McConnell (4-19, 2-11) and Brewton-Parker as both teams have 11 losses in league action.
In the first meeting between the Mariners and Truett-McConnell this season, the Bears won 92-79, and it was important for Coastal Georgia to earn a split in the season series to keep the Bears from having the edge in the head-to-head matchups in the event that tiebreakers are needed to sort out the division standings.
Almost needless to say, winning made it a great day to be a Mariner, especially doing so in convincing fashion.
"It feels good," said veteran Coastal Georgia coach Gerald Cox. "It was the first time we had a comfortable win, and to have that against a team that hadn't beaten us, makes it even more sweet.
"This was big, big for both teams. It was a win we needed."
The Mariners trailed early, but took their first lead at 15-14 on a basket by Kentorey Johnson with 11:12 to go in the first half. The Mariners did briefly surrender the lead again, but after they regained it, they never gave it up the rest of the contest.
Coastal Georgia built its lead to as much as 11 points three different times before the end of the first half and led by 36-25 at the halftime break.
After halftime, the Mariners simply padded their lead throughout the second half. They went up 52-32 on an old-fashioned 3-point play by Johnson with 12:51 to go and never led by less than 20 points after that.
The Mariners actually built a 30-point advantage twice in the final eight minutes.
"We played like we are supposed to play. We didn't do it for 40 minutes, but we did it longer than we usually do," Cox said.
A key to beating the Bears is slowing down senior forward Anthony Dorsey which isn't easy to do. Dorsey came into Saturday's game leading the nation in scoring with 27.18 points per game.
He ended up scoring a game-high 27 to get his average, but it was a quiet 27 that included 16 points in the second half as the Mariners were in control of the game.
Coastal Georgia held Dorsey to 11 points in the first half. In the first meeting between the teams, Dorsey poured in 25 before halftime and finished with 38 for the night.
"Had he scored 25 today in the first half, it might have been a different game," Cox said.
The coach added that the Mariners wanted to dictate the way Dorsey had to attack. "We tried to keep the ball away from him as much as we could, but when he did get it, we wanted to make him go side to side and not allow him to go straight to the basket," Cox pointed out. "We tried to get belly-to-belly with him. For the most part, I thought we did a good job on him."
The two Mariners who primarily defended the Bears' prolific scorer were Reggie Burke and P.J. Reason, and both also came up big for Coastal Georgia on the offensive end.
Reason led the Mariners with 21 points including 10 before halftime. Burke followed with 18 points as did Johnson for the Mariners.
Five players actually scored in doubles for the Mariners. The others were Jevan Billinger (11) and Darrean Wyatt (10).
The Mariners shot a whopping 47.8 percent from the field (33-for-69), which was their second-best shooting performance of the season. They shot 48.2 percent in a 97-88 loss to Voorhees College in the second game of the season.
The 85 points were the fourth most scored this season by the Mariners and third most in regulation. The highest point total in regulation is the 88 scored against Voorhees. Coastal Georgia scored 87 in a loss to Erskine and also scored 85 in a loss at Belhaven in overtime.
The Mariners have very little time to enjoy Saturday's big win. They have 48 hours before they take the floor against second-ranked Lee at 8 p.m. Monday at home.
Lee defeated Coastal Georgia 89-78 at home on Jan. 12. The Flames were ranked seventh in the country then, but have since climbed to No. 2.
The Mariners hope their Sixth Man, especially the students, will show up in droves, for Monday's game. Tip time is 8 p.m. following a 6 p.m. women's game between Coastal Georgia and Lee.
They really would like to see the Coffin rocking throughout the women's showdown between Coastal Georgia and seventh-rated Lee and simply have that continue in their ballgame.
