LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. ? Rider junior Jason Thompson scored a career-high 28 points and teammate Justin Robinson added 13 points as the host Broncs downed Canisius 68-55 Sunday afternoon in Alumni Gymnasium. The win was Rider's third in four games and improved the team to 12-9 on the season and 7-4 in league play while the Golden Griffins fell for the third-straight time and slipped to 7-15 overall and 2-10 in MAAC action.
Julius Coles led the way for Canisius with a team-high 19 points, 15 of which came in the second half. Frank Turner was credited with 16 points, while Greg Logins scored seven points and pulled down a team-high eight rebounds in the losing effort.
With the score tied at 48-48 midway through the second half, Rider used a 9-1 run over a span of 4:02 to help the Broncs pull away en route for the win. Robinson got things going for Rider with a layup and then Thompson scored five of the team's next seven points, capped by a slam dunk on a long pass from teammate Novar Gadson. The Griffs got the game within six at 57-51 moments later when Coles scored from inside the lane, but Rider was able to put the game away by going 9-for-10 from the foul line in the contest's last 4:15.
Canisius trailed by as many as 12 in the first half before the Griffs made a run and cut Rider's halftime cushion to five at 32-27. In the first 20 minutes, Canisius shot 43.5 percent from the field, while Rider shot 40.7 percent. In the opening moments of the second stanza, the Blue and Gold used a 6-0 run to take a 33-32 lead, but the Broncs answered that with an 18-7 scoring spurt where Thompason scored 12 points for Rider.
"In what I thought was a real tough, physical game, we simply didn't take care of the basketball the way you need to in order to win the game, especially on the road," Canisius head coach Tom Parrotta said. "The defense and rebounding were there, but we had too many empty possesions where we didn't get a shot. Right down to the end, we had opportunites to win this game but we didn't capitalize. Again, we hung tough. We fell behind early and then scrapped and clawed our way back to a lead in the second half. We've got to stay the course and cntinue to learn from these games and find a way to push ourselves over the top and reward ourselves for playing really, really hard."
The Griffs will return home Friday, Feb. 6, when the team plays host to Fairfield in the Koessler Athletic Center. The game will be shown live on ESPNU and is set to tipoff at 7 p.m.
Game Notes: The Griffs and the Broncs split the regular season series, with each team winning at home... Julius Coles averaged 22.5 points per game this season against Rider... Frank Turner's two assist gives him 400 in his career, making him the fifth player in school history to reach that milestone... Canisius outrebounded its opponent for the third time in the last four outings.
