Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 7, 1995 TAG: 9502070108
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANDREA KUHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Six Maroons scored in double figures Monday night and Roanoke blew past the Hornets 95-81 in an Old Dominion Athletic Conference game. Lynchburg fell to 5-15 overall and into a last-place tie with Eastern Mennonite with a 2-13 league record.
Just two days earlier, the Maroons were 18-point victims to Hampden-Sydney and dropped from second to fifth place in the ODAC standings with less than two weeks to play in the regular season.
``That's the great thing about basketball,'' Roanoke coach Page Moir said. ``If this had been football, we would have had to wait a week for redemption.''
Bryant Lee and Tim Braun scored 18 points each for the Maroons (14-7, 9-6), but the most conspicuous contribution came from sophomore swingman Kevin Sigafoes, who had a career-high 14 points and four assists in 26 minutes.
Sigafoes had been averaging 1.9 points in six minutes with a previous season-high of six points.
Part of the reason for Sigafoes' promotion was the absence of freshman A.J. Hamlin, who quit the team Sunday. Hamlin, a former standout at Richmond's Manchester High School, was Roanoke's fifth leading scorer (8.3 ppg) and averaged 17 minutes per game. He had started the previous five games, the only freshman to do so in Moir's six-year tenure.
``It was a disappointing situation and he just wasn't happy with his playing time,'' Moir said. ``But Sigafoes gives us more experience and he's a more consistent shooter from the perimeter.''-
The Maroons took a 19-point lead - their biggest of the game - on a driving layup by Jason Bishop that made it 63-44 with 17 minutes, 14 seconds to play.
But the Hornets went on an 18-9 run that cut the deficit to 10 with 9:29 left. Otis Tucker III of Lynchburg, who finished with a team-high 28 points, scored nine in the run.
The Hornets got as close as eight points, but the Maroons made 12 free throws down the stretch to seal the victory. Bishop, who finished with 11 points, hit all four of his free throws in the game's final 33 seconds.
The Maroons were 33-of-61 from the field (54 percent), the first time in 13 games they've shot better than 50 percent.
Lee added three blocked shots and 11 rebounds for Roanoke, which dominated the boards 46-27. It was Lee's eighth double-double of the season.
by CNB