Rio Grande --- The University of Rio Grande RedStorm men's basketball team delivered the knockout punch early to visiting Ohio-Lancaster in the first round of the Bevo Francis Tournament on Friday night at the Newt Oliver Arena, winning by a score of 106-70. 

Rio Grande (2-1) scored 13 unanswered points to start the game and never trailed in cruising to the victory. Rio held leads of 18-1, 25-3, 40-14 and 47-16 in the first half. Rio took a 56-26 advantage to halftime.

Ohio-Lancaster played better in the second half, but the damage had already been done.

Rio Grande played one of its most complete games in a long time with everyone on the roster getting minutes. Rio placed five players in double figures in a balanced scoring attack. Sophomore forward Dani Marti (Valencia, Spain) and senior forward Wendell Bates, Jr. (Akron, OH) topped the scoring chart with 14 points each. Bates also pulled down five rebounds. Sophomore guard Florian Schneider (Samswegan, Germany) hit three late trifectas to earn 13 points in the game, matching the output of senior guard Doug Campbell (Salisbury, NC). Freshman guard Jermaine Warmack (Orange, NJ), making his first collegiate start, added 10 points. Warmack and junior forward Shaun Gunnell (Columbus, OH) lead the way in the rebounding department with six each. 

OU-L was led by Brandon Amann with 21 points while Joe Rice added 14 and Dylan Moore chipped in with 13. Andy Gerschutz led all players with five assists. 

"I thought it was one of the best games we've played in a long time," said Rio Grande head coach Ken French. "We didn't win a lot of last games last year, but even at the beginning of this year, when we've played somebody that we should beat, we would kind of go through the motions and I didn't think we did that tonight."

"Everybody was into a teammate and they were encouraging a teammate and we really played well together," French added. "That was the whole theme going into tonight, we wanted to play as a team, we wanted to grow, we wanted to get better and we wanted to play together and that's all we talked about all week, was trying to get better and grow." 

"We haven't been together for very long and we're still a work in progress, but we took a huge step tonight," French said. "You look forward to tomorrow, we're going to have our hands full, but we're very excited. These guys have got to enjoy this because sometimes as coaches, we always look at how we play and I've got some kids in that locker room that went through a lot last year; we've got to cherish every chance that we get when we get a win. We've got to really embrace it and know how that feels and understand what we did to achieve that." 

The RedStorm will face old American Mideast Conference rival Cedarville on Saturday in the championship game at 5 p.m. Cedarville beat Bluefield College, 98-75 in the first men's game of the day. OU-L and Bluefield will face off at 1 p.m. on Saturday. 

A live video stream of the Rio/Cedarville game can be seen on iHigh.com.