Resurgent Read Leads Eagles Past Royals, 89-58

Box Score 

(2/26/08 - Men's Basketball) FULLERTON - Ryan Read continued his recent hot shooting by tallying a game-high 24 points as #7-ranked Concordia eased to a 89-58 win over host Hope International, Tuesday evening in Golden State Athletic Conference play.

For the second-straight game, Read connected on 8-of-13 shots from the field, including 6-of-11 from three-point range, to keep up his turnaround after a two-game shooting slump that coincided with consecutive losses. Read scored a total of just seven points against Azusa Pacific and Vanguard, a stretch that dropped his team-leading scoring average almost an entire point.

Over the last four games, Read is averaging 18.8 points per game and has connected on 18 three-point field goals. His 49 points over the last two games represents his best two-game stretch of the season and the best back-to-back games by a Concordia player since Levi Luster had 52 points over the final two games of last season.

With two crucial games left in the season for the Eagles to earn their second-straight GSAC titles, the Eagles needed to be careful not to overlook the Royals, who played The Master's to a one-point game at home just three days ago.

Head coach Ken Ammann, who has preached all season to take each opponent the same, had his message taken to heart by his team. The Eagles jumped out to a 11-0 lead as Rafael Da Silva scored five early points and the defense forced five early turnovers.

An examination of the assist-to-turnover ratio told a considerable part of the game story. The Eagles were credited with 22 assists, led by Adam Greenaway with six, against just eight turnovers. The Royals, meanwhile, had just seven assists while committing 23 turnovers.

With the lead briefly trimmed to 20-13 at the 14:19 mark of the first half, the Eagles cranked up the pressure to put the game away early. Read hit the second of his six three-pointers after a trey by Terrence Worthy to ignite a 18-0 run. Worthy added another three while Greenaway finished things off at the 9:24 mark with a steal and lay-up for a 38-13 advantage.

Ammann was able to liberally use his bench to keep the Eagles fresh with two more games to come over the next six days. No player saw more than 27 minutes while all 11 Eagles played at least 11 minutes.

Worthy hit all five of his three-point attempts to chip in with 15 points while Ben Smith came off the bench to toss in 12 points to go along with 8 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 blocks. Greenaway had a strong all-around game with 10 points, 6 assists and 3 steals as the Eagles shot 57.1% in the first half.

Arron Boone had 14 points and a game-high 15 rebounds (6 offensive) to lead Hope International (1-24, 1-17 GSAC) while also blocking five shots. Travis Hardeman added 10 points and 3 rebounds while Mario Neely chipped in with 9 rebounds.

Concordia (23-4, 14-4 GSAC) is back home on Thursday, February 28 to host Westmont with tip-off scheduled for 7:30 p.m.