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Spiders Hand Colonials First League DefeatRichmond mounts second-half comeback at home
There were questions about how legitimate Karl Hobbs’ George Washington Colonials were despite a 3-0 start to conference play, and their loss to Harvard on Saturday certainly didn’t help matters. But they looked every bit the threat in the first half at the Robins Center, shooting 55.6% from the field while limiting Richmond point guard Kevin Anderson to five points in taking a nine-point lead into the locker room. But the combo of Justin Harper and a revitalized Anderson proved to be too much in the second half as the Spiders scored 44 points, winning 68-58 to move their conference record to 3-1 (14-5 overall). Harper finished with a game-high 30 points while also grabbing 10 rebounds, and Anderson scored 15 of his 20 in the second half. Joseph Katuka led the Colonials (10-8, 3-1) with 17 points and Dwayne Smith added 10.
After a pair of Harper free throws with 11:01 remaining made the score 15-13 George Washington, the Colonials outscored Richmond 9-4 over the next five minutes to take a seven-point lead. GW would then go on to score 9 of the final 14 points of the half, leading 33-24 at the intermission behind 10 points from Katuka and a balanced supplemental effort that saw six other players score at least two points. But while the Colonials could only keep Anderson bottled up for so long, they also went cold from the field in the second stanza as the more offensively inclined Spiders charged back and gained control of the contest. Chris Mooney’s club went on a 15-3 run to start the half, taking a 39-35 lead on an Anderson jumper and the senior accounted for seven of those points (Harper had the other eight). Nemanja Mikic was able to answer with a three-pointer to cut Richmond the lead to one, but after a Katuka free throw tied the game Richmond went right back to work offensively. The Spiders quickly scored eight unanswered points in the next 2:17 to go up 47-39, and from that point the Colonials could get no closer than six the remainder of the way. Richmond shot 60.7% from the field in the second half, with the savvy Anderson getting them just about whatever shot they wanted against the George Washington defense. Add in a better performance from beyond the arc (5-10) and much-improved defense and it wasn’t difficult to see why Richmond outscored the Colonials 44-25 in the final 20 minutes. Next up for Richmond is a trip to Massachusetts on Saturday while GW hosts St. Bonaventure the same day.
By:
Raphielle Johnson |