With its victory, B-W improved to 8-2 overall and won its third straight game. With its loss, Hood fell to 5-4 overall with two of its losses coming to Ohio Athletic Conference schools B-W and John Carroll in its season-opener.
In the first half, B-W went on a 14-0 run to build an early 19-3 lead with 16:08 left in the first half and led by as many as 27 points on three separate occassions at 50-23 with 2:14 left before halftime when sophomore forward Chad Clark scored on a hook shot. Clark, who prior to today scored nine career points, led B-W with 13 in the first stanza. B-W also led the intermission by 23 points at 50-27.
In the second half, the Yellow Jackets extended their lead to as many as 41 points at 80-39 with 7:28 left in the game when backup guard Dan Gundert connected on a pair of foul shots.
In addition to Clark for B-W, junior guard Keith Aufmuth scored 15 points as he connected on five three-pointers, senior point guard Tom Harrington had 10 points and junior backup forward Charod Hale came off the bench to score 10 points and grab a game-high nine rebounds.
In the win, senior forward Thad Davis scored eight points and grabbed eight rebounds. With his eight points and eight rebounds today, Thad Davis now has 1,535 career points and 783 career rebounds.
Hood was led by sophomore guard Santo Provenzano with 19 points. He came into the game as the leading scorer in Division III at 29.5 ppg. and scored 44 in his last outing (on Dec. 8 against Bethany, W.Va.).
Tomorrow, the B-W men will play host Hampden-Sydney, 6-3 overall, in the championship game at 4:00 p.m.
Following its game with Hampden-Sydney, B-W returns to Berea and will also return to Ohio Athletic Conference action when it hosts OAC arch-rival Mount Union College on Wednesday, January 5, 2005 at the Rudolph Ursprung Gymnasium at 7:30 p.m.