Box Score

The Malone University men's basketball team earned its second win in as many tries in the young 2012-13 season as the Pioneers pocketed an 89-85 home win over Notre Dame College (OH) in Malone's Osborne Hall Thursday night.  With the victory, Malone improved to 2-0 on the campaign while the Falcons dropped to 1-1.

In the first half, neither team led by more than four points until Malone took a 25-19 lead with 8:29 left in the first frame.  But the visitors scored the next eight points to grab a 27-25 advantage.  Although the Pioneers then rallied to take a seven-point lead with 3:12 left in the half, the Falcons charged back again and, with a three-pointer just before the halftime buzzer, took a 38-37 lead into the locker room at the intermission.

In the second period, Notre Dame would hold the lead for the first five minutes or so but on a basket with 14:20 left in the contest, Malone took a 52-51 lead, one that they would never relinquish.  The Falcons kept it extremely interesting, though, as they kept cutting Malone's 6-8 points leads back to 1-3 points leads for the remainder of the second half.  The visitors cut the lead to 86-85 on a layup with 33 seconds remaining but the host Pioneers hit three of their next four free throw attempts to snare the four-point 89-85 win.

Guard Isiah Elliott poured in a career-high 28 points (9-17 FG, 4-8 3FG, 6-6 FT) while also dishing out a team-best five assists.  Elliott also contributed five rebounds, two steals and two blocked shots to the Pioneer cause.

Guard Che Richardson tossed in 13 points and added six rebounds, three assists and a steal while forward Vince Kazmierczak also hit twin figures with 11 points.  Kazmierczak also grabbed five rebounds and pocketed an assist, a blocked shot and a steal.

Guard Christian Graves came in off the bench and chipped in nine points, all from three-point range as he was 3-for-6 from long range, while also collecting a pair of rebounds.  Forward David Goodwater yanked down a team-high eight rebounds to go along with his four assists, two blocked shots and two points.

Notre Dame's Lawrence DeArmond paced the Falcons in scoring with 20 points while Eric Dummermuth followed with 19 points.  Dummermuth led the team in rebounds with 10.

Malone netted 43.4% (33-76) of its field goal attempts as Notre Dame sank 40.8% (29-71).  From long range, the Pioneers drilled two more baskets (10-24 for 41.7%) than the visitors but the Falcons had the slightly better percentage at 44.4% (8-18).  At the free throw line, Notre Dame hit 19 of 25 attempts for 76.0% while Malone converted 13 of 17 for 76.5%.  A close rebounding battle saw the Pioneers come out on top by a 46-43 margin.

Malone will continue its season by competing in a pair of contests in the central time zone in the coming week, both of which are part of the Hoops For Hope Challenge, taking on Southern Methodist University (TX) on Monday (Nov. 19) at 9:00 p.m. EST (8:00 p.m. CST) in Dallas in an exhibition contest followed by a game at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri on Wednesday (Nov. 21) at 8:05 p.m. EST (7:05 p.m. CST).  The SMU and Missouri State contests will both have live video, audio and statistics available.  Click here for links to the multimedia coverage.