MOON TWP, Pa. — Robert Morris (3-2) played host to Lindenwood (1-3) on the second night of the Urban-Bennett Invitational and walked away with their third consecutive win. The Colonials were not able to pull away until midway through the second half when their three-point shooting heated up.
After the Colonials had their 9-point lead cut to just 5 points, Dilen Miller and Alvaro Folgueiras each hit a three to push the Colonials lead into double-digits. Once they obtained a sizable lead, the Colonials allowed their defense to finish the job as they won by the score of 67-53.
The Colonials shot 15-of-30 from the field and 6-of-11 from three-point range in the second half.
“Threes just carry so much weight in the course of a game,” Robert Morris head coach Andy Toole told Pittsburgh Sports Now following the game. “They can be detrimental when you go through hard possessions and a guy makes a late three, or the wrong guy gets open for a three, it is killer. … Those are the shots that we got to continue to find and continue to take so when they started to go down, I think it really started to open up a lot of stuff for us.”
After the two squads opened the game shooting a combined 0-for-5 from the field, they traded three-point buckets to kick the scoring off. Shortly after, the Colonials had the first scoring run of the game as they scored the next 6 points to take a decent lead. Their 6-0 run was highlighted by a three pointer by Josh Omojafo.
Omojafo led the way for the Colonials as he led all scorers with 17 points as he shot 3-of-5 from three and 7-of-11 from the field overall.
The Lions stopped the run after Dilen Miller hit the floor hard, leaving the Colonials down a man on defense, and Nathan Johnson Jr. nailed the corner three.
The teams then traded buckets over the next few minutes but the Colonials still held a multi-possession lead. That was until the Lions stepped up on both ends of the court. Their defense held the Colonials scoreless for just under five-and-a-half minutes of game time which allowed their offense to go on an 11-0 run.
Reggie Bass scored the final 5 points of the Lions’ run and made a highlight play as he dropped D.J. Smith to the floor and then proceeded to hit the triple. This gave the Lions their first lead of the game but it was short lived, to say the least.
After the last media timeout of the half, the Colonials looked as if they gathered themselves and closed the quarter by out-scoring the Lions 9-5 to take a one-point lead into the intermission.
The Colonials started the second half on a 4-0 run before the teams started trading buckets. Following the short back-and-forth, the Colonials went 4-of-4 from three-point range and pushed their lead to double-digits for the first time in the game.
The Lions managed to cut into the Colonials lead and bring it back to a three-possession game with just under eight minutes to go in the game but the Colonials defense and the Colonial faithful helped close the game out. Amarion Dickerson had two big-time blocks, two huge slams and the crowd influenced multiple misses at the charity stripe.
Dickerson finished with 10 points but his running mate, Folgueiras, also had monster game on the boards as he finished with 14 rebounds, his second consecutive night with double-digit rebounds. He also added 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting.
“Varo is a really, really good rebounder, he has really good instincts for the game,” Toole said. “Obviously, he is a guy that we need to rely on to be consistent every night and I think that is one of the challenges we posed to him going from his freshman year to his sophomore year. … I thought that he played a terrific game tonight on the defensive end and I think he played a terrific offensive second half.”
The Lions shot just 8-of-13 from the free-throw line and just 8-of-29 overall in the second half when shooting towards the Colonials student section.
The Colonials play their third and final game of the Urban-Bennett Invitational against New Orleans on Sunday at 4 pm. After that game, the Colonials hit the road for a matchup with Cornell on Thursday evening.
