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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – In a battle of the top two teams in the Wolverine Hoosier Athletic Conference, No. 11 Davenport came away with a 91-85 win over No. 20 Cornerstone. DU outscored the Golden Eagles by five in the opening half and then exploded for 52 points in the second to improve to 6-1 on the year and 2-0 in league action. Davenport will return to the court next Wednesday when they travel to Lima, Ohio for a battle against Northwestern Ohio.

JaVontae Ford led all scorers on Tuesday night as the red-shirt junior recorded 24 points to go along with eight rebounds, two assists and six steals to fill the stat sheet. He was joined in double-figures by Gabe VanderJagt with 17, Thomas Drew with 13 and Dominez Burnett with 11. Davenport continued to shoot well from the field posting a 53% field goal percentage and the Panther bench outscored the Golden Eagle bench 29-2 in the victory.

After a pair of free-throws gave CU the lead on their first possession, Davenport rattled off the next eight as they got all the points from four different players. CU then used a 3-point play and a banked in three-pointer to knot the score and it would be a sign of things to come with the score never being separated by more five for the remainder of the first half. With the score all square at 34, DU got a layup from Gabe VanderJagt and a rainbow three at the buzzer from Thomas Drew to go up five (39-34) at the break.

The second half turned into an offensive show as the two teams combined for 103 points and it was DU who took charge with a 19-10 run over the first 4:26 to take a commanding 58-44 lead. Cornerstone continued to battle back and held the margin anywhere from 7-12 points until an 8-2 spurt got the Golden Eagles to within four at 87-83 with 1:33 to play. CU got a steal on the next possession but on the ensuing possession, JaVontae Ford came up with one of his six steals and threw an outlet pass the length of the court to Ryan Dame who flushed it home to ice the game.

Both teams shot the ball well from the field as Cornerstone finished with a 46.2% shooting percentage to go with DU's 53%. The Panthers held the advantage on the glass as they out-rebounded the Golden Eagles 40-30 but it was the visitors who took care of the ball as CU committed only 15 turnovers compared to 17 from the Panthers.

Davenport will have eight days off between games as they will be in action next Wednesday at Northwestern Ohio. Game time is set for 7:30pm and will follow the women's game that starts at 5:30pm.  

Post-Game Quotes – Head coach Burt Paddock

On third win over Top-25 program this year - “We have a lot of young/new guys and our older guys have done a great job of setting the tone and our leadership has been great. We scored 91 points against a really good team and we are really excited about where we are going.”

On the crowd helping tonight - “We cannot thank our crowd enough and it gets the kids fired up so much. The ones who cheer for us and even against and it was really exciting for us.”

Post-Game Notes

Davenport is now 15-9 under Burt Paddock against teams in NAIA Top-25 and are 3-1 this season with only loss to #4 Indiana Wesleyan...DU has defeated No. 16 Embry Riddle, No. 20 Cornerstone and No. 23 Southern Oregon...Davenport now 54-12 in WHAC games over last five seasons while Cornerstone is 49-15 which are the best two records during that time in league play...The 6 steals by JaVontae Ford were the second most in Student Center history by an individual

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