November 7, 2017

Gainesville, FL – The Santa Fe Saints narrowly missed making it three straight games with 100 points to start the season, but came away with a double digit win nonetheless, defeating Hillsborough CC 95-74 in Gainesville.

"Nice job by our guys in the first half recovering from a slow start over the first eight minutes or so," said SF Coach Chris Mowry.  "I thought our bench guys came in and gave us a nice boost after we fell behind early.  We really stepped our defense up to close out the first half as well."

The Saints (3-0) trailed 14-7 after eight minutes played but used a 25-5 run over the next nine minutes to go ahead 36-19 with three minutes to play in the half.  By the end of the first 20 minutes Santa Fe had staked themselves to a 45-26 advantage.

The second half was all SF as they pushed the lead to as many as 35.  A late surge by the Hawks brought the score to the final 21 point margin.  The Saints led by 33 with 1:30 to go but four three pointers by Giovanni Diaz on three SF turnovers were the difference in the margin.

"I thought we came out of the locker room in the second half and really did a good job keeping the pressure on," said Mowry.  "We took our foot off the gas over the eight minutes, relaxed a little too much, turned it over too many times and continued to foul when we didn't need to.  Our guys are going to have to learn to adjust to how the game is being called.  They were calling it tight tonight on both teams and we have to figure that out and adjust as the game goes on."

Four players scored in double figures for the Saints, led by 13 from D-Juan Taylor-Hodge and Malik Morrow.  Elias Eerikinharju finished with 12 and Ivan Smith had 11.  Twelve players scored for SF in all.  Santa Fe had 23 assists as a team.

The Saints will hit the road to Barnesville, GA this weekend for a pair of games against Gordon State College on Friday at 8:00 p.m. and on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. against Atlanta Metro College.

For complete schedules, stats, and more information please visit www.santafesaints.com. 

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