Box Score

Lake Wales, Fla. – James Nelson scored 17 points and Nathan Cox finished with 10 points and 5 rebounds to lead the #19 ranked Panthers to a 68-65 win over Roberts Wesleyan in the championship game of the Warner University Holiday Tournament.  Davenport is now14-3 on the year and will host Marygrove College on Wednesday, January 5.

After picking up a huge 74-71 win over #17 ranked Grace College (Ind.) on Wednesday night, the Panthers returned to the floor at Warner University for the championship and used a strong second half to propel them to the three-point win over the Raiders.

Davenport controlled the play for much of the first half until a late run gave Roberts Wesleyan a tie score of 30-30 heading into the locker room.  DU had led by as many as 13 after James Nelson (New Haven, Mich.) converted a fast-break layup to put the Panthers up 22-9 with 8:33 to play.

The Raiders however used a 21-6 run to take their only lead of the first half at 30-28 before Davenport got two late free-throws from Darryl Nobles (Detroit, Mich.) for the tie game at the break.

After an early lead from RWC in the second half, it was all Davenport for the next 7 minutes of play as they again upped their lead into double-digits after a three-pointer from JaVontae Ford (Grand Rapids, Mich.) with 14:09 remaining in the game. Roberts Wesleyan kept fighting and kept the DU lead within 5-6 points for most of the half until finally tying the score at 55 all with 6:26 to play.

With the score 60-59 in favor of Davenport with just over two minutes to play, the Panthers ran the shot clock to under 10 and got a huge long ball from James Humphrey (Fort Wayne, Ind.) to put a nice 4-point cushion on the board.  That lead held up for the remainder of the game with DU hitting some clutch shots from the charity stripe to ice the win.

Also finding double-digits in scoring were Lonnie Fairfax (Detroit, Mich.) with 11 and James Humphrey (Fort Wayne, Ind.) with 10.  DU finished the game shooting just 40.7 from the floor compared to 46.8% for the Raiders.

DU will return to the Student Center for a 7:30pm tip-off vs. Marygrove College on Wednesday, January 5.  The game will be featured through live video and audio on the DAN beginning with the pre-game show at 7:10pm.