Nov. 20, 2009

Box Score

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Davenport shot 54% from the field and forced 26 turnovers as they advanced to the Calvin championship game on Saturday with an 88-73 win over Lake Forest College. DU will play at 3:00 after they improved to 5-0 on the year with the win Friday.

Coming off a big win against Southern Nazarene last Saturday, Davenport made their first ever appearance at Calvin College and walked away with an 88-73 win over a scrappy Lake Forest team.

DU began the game with a 10-2 run that was highlighted by an emphatic slam dunk of one of three first half steals from sophomore James Nelson (New Haven, Mich.). After a basket by the Foresters, Davenport then scored seven of the next nine points for a 17-6 lead with 12:19 remaining in the half.

Lake Forest remained strong though and kept fighting and crawled their way back into the game with a 21-11 run over the next 7:10 of the game and tied the score at 27.

Davenport then closed the half on an 11-7 run to lead 38-34 going into the locker room. DU battled foul trouble for most of the half as junior David Thompson (Grandville, Mich.) played sparingly with three fouls and three other Panthers had at least two each.

Starting the second half was much like the first as DU quickly went up by 9 at 47-38 on a layup from Mario Scott (Grand Rapids, Mich.). The lead would grow to as many as 14 at the 12:07 mark when Gabe VanderJagt (Rockford, Mich.) converted a three-point play off a steal from Lonnie Fairfax (Livonia, Mich.).

But again it was Lake Forest who remained strong and stayed in the game with some timely three-point shots and forced turnovers from the Panthers.

The lead never got below eight for the remainder of the game as the two teams traded baskets from the 8:11 mark until the final outcome of 88-73.

Each team finished the game shooting a high percentage with LFC posting 51% (25/49) and Davenport 54% (32/60). DU's defense again forced some quite a few turnovers as the Foresters finished with 26 on the night compared to only 15 from DU.

James Nelson led the team in scoring on the night with 21 points as Mario Scott chipped in 18 to go along with 6 steals. Lorenzo Ecford (Chicago, Ill.) finished with 17 points on 6-9 shooting from the field and Nathan Cox came off the bench to post 13 points.

DU will play in the championship game on Saturday against the Grace Bible/Calvin winner at 3:00 PM.