2011-12 Men's Basketball

HENDERSON, Tenn. - The Freed-Hardeman Lions used runs of 20-5 and 20-0 to ease past Blue Mountain (Miss.) College, 102-51, on Saturday afternoon in the FHU Sports Center.

The win improves the Lions to 11-6 overall and 3-1 in the TranSouth Conference, putting them into a third-place tie in the early standings.  Blue Mountain falls to 1-14 overall and 0-3 in conference play.

FHU's defense created 11 turnovers in the first 10 minutes of the game as the Lions built a 25-7 lead halfway through the first half.  Blue Mountain, though, chipped away and eventually cut FHU's edge to 33-22 with 5:17 left in the half.  The Lions pushed back ahead in the final five minutes to take a 49-32 lead into the locker room.

The second half proved to be much of the same for the Lions, who went on a 20-0 run over a four-minute span, highlighted by a Kristoffer Smith fast break dunk after Anthony Sampson tossed it off the glass, to take a comfortable 84-44 lead with 8:22 left in the game.  From there, FHU cruised to the 51-point win.

Every Lion player saw at least nine minutes of action in the game, and every Lion got his name into the scorebook.  Tyler Jennings came off the bench to lead all scorers with 17 points, the fourth time he has led FHU in scoring off the bench this season.  He also grabbed 10 rebounds as did Jesse Moulton, a career-high for the sophomore guard.  Moulton added 14 points while Zack Frey scored 13 and Kirtiss Brown netted 10.

FHU forced a total of 33 turnovers and grabbed 62 rebounds, 26 of which came on the offensive end.  The Lions only shot 43.3 percent from the floor, but held Blue Mountain to 26.1 percent shooting and took 90 shots to the Toppers' 69.

Freed-Hardeman returns to the floor on Thursday night as the Lions host Bethel (Tenn.) College at 8:00 PM.

Notes: Two Lions set career highs in rebounding during the game.  Moulton's 10 boards was a personal best, as was reserve forward Vincent Barnes's eight rebounds.  Barnes also tied a career-high with four steals...As a team, the Lions set a new season-highs in seven statistical categories including points, rebounds, and steals...Kirtiss Brown's 10 points was his season-high...Zack Frey has now scored 976 career points.