HELENA, Mont. - The No. 10 Carroll College men's basketball team came out firing and never let Rocky get a foothold, running away from the Battlin' Bears in the first half to cruise to a 90-63 win Saturday at the PE Center.
Rocky Mountain led 3-2 on a three-pointer from Chad Kananen on Rocky's first possession, but Carroll responded with a 15-0 run that spanned three and a half minutes to take control of the game.
The Bears answered with a 6-0 run to cut the lead to 17-9, but Carroll hit back-to-back buckets to extend the lead to 22-9 and held a double-digit lead for the rest of the game.
Carroll closed the half on a 12-0 run to take a 48-19 lead into the locker room. The Saints held Rocky to 7-23 (30.4 percent) from the field in the first half while hitting 19-29 (65.5 percent).
The second half was a shot-for-shot battle. The Bears outscored Carroll 44-42 after the break but were never able to cut the deficit to under 20.
The difference for the Saints tonight was the energy according to head coach Carson Cunningham.
"That was fun; the fellas got after it," Cunningham said. "It was great to see the energy and effort flowing on the court, on the bench, and from the crowd, which gave us a fantastic boost. Rocky is a tough team to deal with. We need to learn from this one and apply lessons from it. It's a battle-rama in this league. Now our attention turns to the next round."
Balanced scoring was the name of the game for the Saints. Four players scored in double figures.
Matt Wyman scored a game-high 18 points,
Ryan Imhoff added 16 on 7-8 shooting,
Match Burnham 13 on 4-4 shooting and
Alejandro Santos Piqueras tallied 10 points.
The Saints shared the ball at an amazing clip. Carroll tallied 18 assists on 34 made shots. Piqueras and Imhoff tallied five each to lead the way. The Saints had 14 steals to force 18 turnovers. Carroll outrebounded the Bears 32-23.
Rocky was 23-51 (45.1 percent) from the field for the game but had a stellar 16-28 (57.1 percent) shooting in the second half. Kananen lead Rocky with 12 points and Jared Samuelson added 11.
The Saints continue the homestand on Feb. 1 against Providence. The Argos picked up an upset Saturday over No. 8 Lewis-Clark State in Great Falls.
