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Seniors lead rout of Navy

LEWISBURG — In a 48-second span, the majority of the 2,869 fans in attendance inside of Sojka Pavilion stood up and applauded.

Not once, but three times.

It wasn’t for a huge basket or nice dunk, but rather each time was to give an ovation to three seniors that have done a lot for Bucknell the past four seasons.

Stephen Brown, Nana Foulland and Zach Thomas all were taken out of the game in the final five minutes and received standing ovations from the crowd, and for good reason.

On a night the three seniors were honored prior to the game, they were enormous offensively for the Bison in a Patriot League win over Navy in the Bison’s final regular-season home game Wednesday.

The trio combined for 60 points as Bucknell rolled past Navy, 85-61, and held the Midshipmen to below their season scoring average.

Navy (19-11, 10-7 Patriot League) didn’t have an answer for Brown, Foulland or Thomas defensively. Brown led Bucknell (21-9, 15-2 PL) with 25 points — 20 of which came in the first half — and Thomas added 23 points.

Foulland added 12 and Bruce Moore came off the bench to score 10 points.

“Just being aggressive early on throughout the zone. The team was able to find me in the open spot and get ready to shoot, and that’s biggest thing coach keeps harping on is when ball comes to you, be ready to shoot and be confident,” Brown said.

While the trio was huge for Bucknell’s offense, the Bison defense played well against Navy and prevented the Midshipmen from getting many good looks.

After the two teams went back and forth early in a first-half which featured four lead changes and two ties, the Bison used the final five minutes of the first half to gain some separation.

It was that span where Bucknell outscoried Navy, 20-10, to go ahead by double digits. And once Bucknell led by 10, Navy never cut it back to single digits the remainder of the night.

Bucknell also had seven blocks, two each from Nate Sestina and Foulland, and forced 17 Navy turnovers and scored 22 points thanks to them.

“I thought that we certainly had our moments. It wasn’t perfect. There were things that we need to work on moving forward that we didn’t handle well, especially early on, but I thought we did a good job all year long,” Bucknell coach Nathan Davis said. “Especially since league play has started, we’ve been the best defensive team in the league by a lot and I don’t think that changed tonight.”

“We were really locked in on defense and I think that once we got stops and turnovers in transition, (we were) getting better flow on offense,” Brown said.

Navy’s Hasan Abdullah was a thorn in Bucknell’s side in the first half from 3-point range when he hit four of them and had 14 points at halftime. But in the final 20 minutes, Bucknell allowed him to score only five more points and he didn’t hit another 3.

Aside from Abdullah, Navy received 14 points from Ryan Pearson and 10 from Shawn Anderson.

“A lot of his threes early on were catch-and-shoot threes, so we cut off the penetration from different guys on their team,” Brown said.

Navy struggled shooting against the Bison to start the second half, scoring just two points in the first five minutes as Bucknell proceeded to lead by 20 points.

Bucknell led by as many as 29 in the second half.

We were getting good shots, we were just taking care of things defensively, making it tough to score and that gives you a chance to build a lead,” Davis said.

Bucknell has just one regular-season game remaining before the Patriot League playoffs begin on March 1 and that’s a road trip on Saturday against American. Bucknell has already earned the league title and home court advantage for the Patriot League quarterfinals.

But Bucknell has a chance to make history if it can defeat American by becoming the first team in Patriot League history to earn 16 regular-season league wins.

“Would be nice to do that. We have an opportunity to go down there and play together one more time before the tournament and we want to take full advantage and play our best,” Davis said.

Navy (19-11)

Lacey 0-3 0-0 0, Wieck 0-2 0-0 0, Anderson 4-11 2-2 10, Abdullah 6-13 3-3 19, Dulin 0-2 1-4 1, Mannion 0-0 0-0 0, Riemersma 1-3 0-0 2, Lewis 1-2 0-0 2, L.Loehr 3-3 0-0 6, Davis 3-7 0-0 7, Antonelli 0-1 0-0 0, Fox 0-3 0-0 0, Pearson 5-6 2-2 14, Cullen 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-56 8-11 61.

Bucknell (21-9)

Thomas 9-14 2-3 23, Foulland 5-8 2-5 12, Toomer 0-1 0-0 0, Brown 8-14 5-7 25, Sotos 1-4 0-0 3, Meeks 1-1 1-2 3, Moore 3-4 3-3 10, Sestina 2-5 2-2 6, Newman 0-1 0-0 0, Sechan 0-0 0-0 0, Robertson 0-0 0-0 0, Jones 1-2 0-0 3. Totals 30-54 15-22 85.

Halftime: Bucknell, 48-32. 3-point goals: Navy 7-19 (Abdullah 4-8, Pearson 2-3, Davis 1-2, Antonelli 0-1, Anderson 0-5), Bucknell 10-22 (Brown 4-7, Thomas 3-5, Jones 1-2, Moore 1-2, Sotos 1-3, Toomer 0-1, Sestina 0-2). Fouled Out: Navy-none; Bucknell-none. Rebounds: Navy 27 (Lacey 6), Bucknell 29 (Thomas 6). Assists: Navy 13 (Anderson, Abdullah 3), Bucknell 16 (Jones 5). Total fouls: Navy 20, Bucknell 12. Technical fouls: Navy-none; Bucknell-none. A: 2,869.

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