American Crests Against Colgate

American 69, Colgate 44

There's something about Colgate that brings out the best in the American men's basketball team. For the second time this season, the Eagles overwhelmed the Raiders, winning 69-44 yesterday afternoon at Bender Arena.

AU, which swept the series by a combined 55 points, has won 10 in a row against Colgate.

"There's nothing really special with Colgate," guard Derrick Mercer said. "If we could do that with every team, that's great."

The Raiders (9-15, 5-6 Patriot), whose three-game winning streak ended, might have met American (17-7, 9-1) at the wrong time. After barely scraping past the league's worst team on Wednesday -- a 52-50 victory at Bucknell -- the Eagles came out much stronger against Colgate, a team they beat 79-49 on Jan. 17. They never trailed, using a 15-2 run to take a double-digit lead midway through the first half.

"After the Bucknell game, Coach definitely chewed us out and let us know that just by getting by we dodged a bullet," said Mercer, who finished with 15 points. "The next day at practice, we had our hard hats out. We went to work."

Though American Coach Jeff Jones said the team was looking forward, not back, he admitted the narrow victory over the Bison played a role in yesterday's win.

"We didn't play very well and I didn't think we came out ready to play against Bucknell," Jones said. The players "heard about that from me starting with Wednesday night, all day Thursday and all day [Friday], and even [Saturday] morning."

The most striking aspect of the victory was AU's balanced effort. Led by reserve Nick Hendra, four players scored in double figures. Hendra recorded his first career double-double, grabbing a personal-best 11 rebounds and tying his career best with 16 points on 7-for-9 shooting. He also had a team-high three assists.

"At the beginning of the year, Coach told me, 'Efficiency is going to be your biggest thing this year,' " Hendra said. "I've just tried to crash the boards, be efficient on offense and be solid on [defense]."

Garrison Carr added 11 points and five rebounds, despite taking an elbow to the face and leaving the game briefly until the bleeding stopped. Mercer and Carr were honored before the game for reaching 1,000 career points. They are the first pair of 1,000-point scorers to play on the same team for AU since Tim Fudd and Darryl Franklin in 1996.

The Eagles, who shot 51 percent, were also impressive on the defensive end. They held undermanned Colgate to 31.3 percent shooting. The Raiders were without senior forward Alex Woodhouse (Hayfield), the Patriot League's top shot blocker and second-leading rebounder who injured his knee on Wednesday.

With the win -- their sixth in a row and 12th out of their last 13 -- the Eagles clinched home court for the first round of the Patriot League tournament which begins March 4. AU is 8-1 at home this season.