Thursday, March 03, 2011

MACON, Ga. – The Mercer Bears, the host school and No. 5 seeded men’s team in the General Shale Brick Atlantic Sun Conference championships, took out No. 4 seed Lipscomb Bisons, 73-63, at the University Center on Thursday night. The win advances the Bears (15-17) into a semifinal clash with No. 1 seed Belmont Bruins on Friday evening at 6:30 p.m.

MU built a comfortable lead by halftime, 38-27, and withstood all charges by the Bisons in the second stanza, maintaining a double-figure lead for much of time. Mercer’s largest margin was 14 points with 8:39 remaining.

The Bears rode a stellar effort by All-Atlantic Sun forward Brian Mills, who led all scorers with 27 points, while also grabbing six rebounds and blocking a pair of shots. Mills was 9-of-17 from the floor and a perfect seven-of-seven from the free throw stripe in registering his 26th double-figure scoring game of the year.

Freshman Bud Thomas and senior Mark Hall each added 12 points to round out MU’s leading scorers. Freshman point guard Langston Hall had nine points, four rebounds and dished off five assists.

Lipscomb was led by 18 points from its All-Conference performer, Josh Slater, and 15 from Adam Burgason.

It was the second-consecutive win over the Bisons by Mercer, who also closed out the regular season with a victory over LU, 68-67, at home last Saturday.

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