Box Score WILLIAMSTOWN, MA -- Six players scored in double figures Sunday night as the Williams College men's basketball team used a dominate second half to pull away from cross-county rival Massachusetts College, 102-78, in the Chandler Gymnasium.
Williams improved to 4-0 with the win, and will travel to Troy, N.Y. Tuesday night for an 8 p.m. tip-off with RPI. MCLA fell to 0-2 on the young season and will host Wesleyan Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
Williams junior Mike Mayer led all scorers with 27 points and added 12 rebounds for his second double-double of the season. John Weinheimer came off the bench to score 12 of his 17 points in the second half and Daniel Wohl also scored 16. Taylor Epley added 14 while James Klemm and Nate Robertson each scored 11.
Mike Muller scored 14 points for MCLA, Vernon Cross 13 and Bilal Shabazz 11.
"I think we're growing as a basketball team each and every game," Ephs' head coach Mike Maker said. "We shared the ball, we had balanced scoring and we guarded, particularly in the second half."
The first 11 minutes of the second half could not have been more different than the entire first half as Williams was able to everything it could not do in the opening 20 minutes; defend MCLA, win the glass and score from the floor with consistency.
Up just one at the half, Williams opened up an 18-point lead over the first nine minutes in the second half. The Ephs, after shooting 35 percent in the first half, shot 70 percent (12 of 17) in that span while forcing seven turnovers, grabbing 10 boards to MCLA's five and holding the visitors to just eight points.
In the first 2:55 of the second, the Ephs went up by seven, 46-39. Epley drove the baseline for two, and after a turnover, Robertson fed Wohl for an easy lay-in. After Shabazz hit two free throws for MCLA, Mayer sank a three from the top of the key for a 46-39 lead.
Richard Johnson made MCLA's first field goal of the half to make it 46-41, but Klemm answered that with a three-pointer of his own from the left corner for a 49-41 advantage. After a Cross basket for the 'Blazers, Robertson came up with a steal and went coast to coast for a lay-up to reinstall the eight-point advantage.
The Williams lead was at 10 when Maker worked a give-and-go with Robertson for two, and after two MCLA turnovers -- they had 19 on the night -- Robertson drove the lane for an old-fashioned three-point play to expand the lead to 15.
"When they extended their defense in the second half," Maker said. "We took advantage of that open space with a lot of back-door cuts for lay-ups."
The first half was a back-and-forth affair which featured eight lead changes and four ties. Williams went into the locker room up one at the break, 38-37, thanks to Klemm, whose drive through the lane resulted in two free throw attempts with four seconds left in the stanza. Klemm sank both for the lead.
It was MCLA which came out on fire and stayed hot for the entire 20 minutes however. The Trailblazers built and early 12-6 lead thanks to some hot shooting -- they made 5 of their first 8 field goal attempts (63 percent).
Bostick opened the game with a three from the top of the key to get the scoring started. When Williams cut the visitors early lead to 7-6, it was Bostick who responded with another trey. MCLA went up 12-6 moments later when Muller hit a short baseline jumper.
Williams scored the next six points to even things at 12, but Muller regained the lead for the 'Blazers with an old-fashioned three-point play off of an offensive rebound. The Ephs responded with four straight points to take their first lead of the game at 16-15 when Mike McCreary drove the lane for two with 11:39 remaining.
Back-to-back field goals from Wohl and Mayer gave Williams its largest lead at 20-17, but MCLA regained the lead with 6:28 left in the half when DelRosario hit a three from the top of the key to make it 26-25.
From that point it was back-and-forth until the buzzer, with Klemm regaining the lead for Williams with a three at the 1:38 mark, then sending the Ephs into the locker room up one with his freebies with four seconds left.
MCLA shot 50 percent from the floor (16 of 32) in the first half and battled Williams nearly evenly on the glass (20-22). Williams hurt itself from the foul line, hitting on only 64.7 percent (11 of 17) attempts. The Ephs shot just 35.3 percent (12 of 34) from the floor in the first half.
