Friday, January 16, 2009

Kennesaw, Ga. - Orlando’s Sheldon Oliver (Edgewater HS) and Garfield Blair (Boone HS) led Stetson (8-8, 5-3) to a 69-52 road win over Kennesaw State (5-10, 1-5) Friday night in Georgia. In a tale of two halves, Blair kept the Hatters in the game in the first, and Oliver led an offensive explosion by the visitors in the second.

Oliver shattered his previous career-high of 11 points with 20 against the Owls, 14 of which came in the second half. For the game he was 8-for-10 from the field and 4-of-6 from the line. Blair, the team’s top scorer, finished with 15 points to go along with seven rebounds, four assists and two steals.

“This was a great win for us,” said head coach Derek Waugh. “Hopefully this will be the kind of win that propels us into getting on a run and winning some more.”

Although he kept the focus on tonight’s solid team effort and did not mention his own accomplishment in the post-game interview, tonight’s win was the 100th overall in Waugh’s career (100-138).

After a poor first half, Stetson opened the second on fire. By the time the whistle blew at 15:37 for the first media timeout the Hatters had put together a 13-4 run to erase the KSU lead and make the score 38-35 Stetson.

Moments later after free throws by Blair and A.J. Smith (Cocoa, Fla.) Stetson had completed an 18-0 run and enjoyed a six point lead. And then, when the next timeout came around, the Hatters had gone from down 31-25 at the half to up 48-37 with 11:34 to play in the game.