HENDERSON, Tenn. - It didn't take long to realize that this night belonged to Zack Frey.
Frey scored the Lions' first eight points and finished the game with 32 points on 14-of-16 shooting from the field, leading the Freed-Hardeman Lions to a 96-80 win over the Bethel (Tenn.) College Wildcats on Thursday night at the FHU Sports Center.
"Our team did a great job of going to him in the post," said FHU head coach Jason Shelton. "When a guy gets going like that it is because his teammates do their part to keep feeding him."
With the Wildcats' attention adjusting its focus to Frey, the door opened for his teammates as FHU went on an 11-0 run to take a 20-14 lead with 12:10 left in the half and extended to 12 points (51-39) at the half.
Led by Antione Lesesene and Dontaye Hinton, Bethel stayed close early in the second half, trailing by 14 with 14:21 in the game. But FHU outscored the Wildcats 16-7 over the next four minutes to go ahead by 23 points (82-59), and Bethel never threatened from that point on.
Frey's basket in the midst of that run also put him at 1,000 points for his career, making him the 25th player in Freed-Hardeman history to achieve the milestone.
"Zack is a talented player who has worked very hard to try and keep improving daily," Shelton said. "His hard work shows."
In addition to Frey's 32, the Lions got a solid night from Kristoffer Smith. The senior scored 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Jesse Moulton and Cedric Austin each contributed 11 points. Hinton paced Bethel with 31 points while Lesesene added 19 before fouling out.
Freed-Hardeman moves to 12-6 on the season and 4-1 in conference play, tied for second with Cumberland (Tenn.) behind the team the Lions face on Saturday. FHU travels to No. 5 Union (Tenn.) University for a 4:00 PM tip-off. The Bulldogs defeated Martin Methodist (Tenn.) this evening, 69-68, on a buzzer-beater by Brian Lake.
Notes: The Lions now have two 1,000 point scorers on the team: Frey and Smith. Smith scored his 1,000th point last season...FHU's 4-1 TranSouth record marks its best conference start since the 2002-03 season...Frey is shooting 65.6 percent from the field in his last six games...FHU shot 57.6 percent from the floor in the game, its second-best shooting performance of the season.
