Mount Olive Falls To Division I Old Dominion 76-61 In Men's Basketball Exhibition

Mount Olive Falls To Division I Old Dominion 76-61 In Men's Basketball Exhibition

Three University of Mount Olive players scored in double figures on the night but the Trojans were unable to topple Division I Old Dominion University Monday night in a men's basketball exhibition match-up in Norfolk, Va. This was the last game for Mount Olive before the start of the regular season.

Mount Olive gave up the first points in the contest, but quickly responded to tie the game up off of JaQuan Blount's jumper with 18:24 to go in the first period. Blount used a three-pointer to give the Trojans their only lead of the game at 5-4 with 17:40. The Trojans did tie the game up once again off a shot from beyond the arch from John Wieland at the 15:42 mark.

Old Dominion's Richard Ross used a dunk with just over fifteen minutes to go in the opening period to begin what ended up to be the start of the Monarchs pull away lead. Old Dominion's lead swelled to as much as 13 in the first half and as low as eight as Jordan McCain hit two free throws with :24 to bring the lead under double digits.

The second period was much of the same for the home Monarchs as they continued to expand their lead. Ambrose Mosley hit a three-pointer midway through the period to push the lead to 20. Mount Olive was able to bring the lead down to 12 off another three by Blount and back-to-back layups by Dominque Reed with 4:22 left in the game, however that was as close as the visiting Trojans got as they fell to Old Dominion 76-61.

Reed, Blount, and Dontrell Brite all finished with 11 points. McCain had nine points and five rebounds. Kendall Hargrove had eight points, four assists and led the team in rebounds with seven.

Head Coach Joey Higginbotham commented on the game and looking forward to the season.

"I was very pleased with our effort tonight. We handled some adversity and learned a lot about our guys. We will really study this film and work on some things this week in practice to get ready for Friday.

One thing that I'm pleased with so far with this group is that we are making strides of improvement in the right direction. We have gotten better each and every pre-season game we've played and if we can continue to do this we could be really good come January and February".

The game was an exhibition and does not count towards either teams overall record or stats. Mount Olive opens the 2014-15 regular season against USC-Aiken Friday night in Wilson, N.C. as part of the Barton 45-Second Classic. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m.