November 14, 2009

RedStorm take down Taylor for Bevo Title

Rio Grande --- The University of Rio Grande RedStorm men's basketball team battled with Taylor for the Bevo Francis Championship on Saturday evening at the Newt Oliver Arena and came away with an impressive 75-57 victory.

Rio Grande (3-1) started quickly and played well early, leading for the majority of the first half. The first 20 minutes was closely contested with the RedStorm taking a 30-24 lead to halftime. Rio took exceptional care of the ball with only three turnovers in the first half. 

Rio stayed strong coming out of the locker room and pushed the lead to 12 points at 57-45 after a P.J. Rase trifecta. Minutes later the RedStorm would increase the advantage to 62-48 at the 6:46 mark of the second half. 

Junior guard Doug Campbell (Salisbury, NC) made big basket after big basket as Rio would build the lead to 16 points at 69-53 with a little more than three minutes to play.  Campbell poured in, a game-high, 21 points and earned all-tournament honors.

Rase added 12 points on the strength of 4-of-8 shooting from three-point land. He also handed out six assists to lead all players in that category. Rase would be named the most valuable player of the tournament. Sophomore Bud Teer (Cleveland, OH) collected another double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds and freshman point guard Tony Harris (Cincinnati, OH) chipped in 10 points. 

Rio shot the ball extremely well in the second half, connecting on 14-of-25 attempts (56 percent), including 7-of-11 (63.6 percent) from three-point land. Rio shot 48.1 percent (13-of-27) from beyond the arc for the game. 

Taylor was led by Casey Coons with 18 points earning all-tournament honors. Jake Burkholder added 16 points and Tommy Peller tossed in 13. Peller also was named to the all-tournament team. 

Rio Grande head coach Ken French was very pleased with the way his team played. "It was a great team win, obviously, we played well," French said. "It's by far the best we've played this year."

"We grew up a little bit," French added. "Our challenge will be, how consistent can we be now? We've proven that we can play and we beat a good team and I'm really proud of our guys."

French said it was special to win the Bevo Tournament. "That was our goal going into the weekend," he said. "I wanted, and we talked about it, I wanted P.J. Rase at the end of the night to have Bevo Francis hand him the championship trophy. And it happened. It happened because of a team effort."

French added that Campbell's play was huge for the RedStorm in the victory. "We could have picked Doug Campbell or P.J. Rase as MVP. Today it was Doug Campbell," French said. "Doug, by far, played his best game in a Rio uniform, he's growing up, he's had his confidence running kind of low lately because he hasn't played well and he thought he was letting the team down and tonight he missed his first few shots and then after that he just went crazy."

Union College (1-3) defeated Ohio-Chillicothe 103-74 in the consolation game. Josh Kellough and Nick Milliken of OUC (1-2) were both selected to the all-tournament team.

Rio Grande will go on the road for the first time this season on Tuesday (November 17) with a trip to arch-rival Shawnee State. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. Stretch Internet will have play-by-play coverage beginning at 7:45 p.m.