Bridgewater, Va. – Eastern Mennonite University had seven players reach double-figures in a 109-88 victory over Keystone College on Saturday afternoon to close out the Don Glick Classic hosted by Bridgewater College.  The Royals, who went 2-0 in the tournament, improve to 4-5 on the season with the win while the Giants head into the semester break with a 4-5 record after dropping both of its contests in the tournament.
 
Keystone jumped out to a 17-9 lead over the opening four minutes of Saturday's contest, but Eastern Mennonite countered with a 21-3 push to claim a 30-20 advantage with 11:01 remaining in the opening half.  The Giants came back with the next nine points to pull to within one point at the 8:20 mark as JT Bennett (Kansas City, Kan./Washington) converted a pair of free throws.
 
Eastern Mennonite was able to maintain the lead and pushed it back to as many as eight points, but Keystone netted the final six points of the to cut its deficit to 52-49 at halftime.
 
Mark Gilliam (Philadelphia, Pa./High School of the Future) hit a three-pointer to start the second half to tie the game up and the Giants took a 59-56 lead on an Austin Smith (Titusville, Fla./Florida Air Academy) three-pointer at the 17:21 mark.  The Royals answered with a 14-0 run to claim a 70-59 lead with just under 14 minutes left in regulation.
 
Keystone pulled to within four points midway through the stanza, but Eastern Mennonite put the game out of reach with a 26-5 outburst that put them up 102-77 with four and a half minutes remaining. 
 
Maleke Jones scored a game-high 24 points to go along with seven assists to pace the Knights who also got double-figure efforts from RaShawn Latimer (20), Isaiah Harris-Winn (13), Sammy Thomas (12), Jerome Jones (12), DJ Hill (12), and Travis Clower (11).  Harris-Winn rounded out a double-double with a game-high 12 rebounds for Eastern Mennonite, who held a 50-43 advantage on the glass in the contest.
 
The Knights connected on 50.7 percent of their field goal attempts for the game while going 37 percent from three-point range and 69.4 percent from the free throw line.
 
Gilliam paced Keystone's offense with 17 points and four assists while Smith netted 15 points in the loss.  John Kirkpatrick (Philadelphia, Pa./Northeast) totaled 12 points and a team-best seven rebounds, Perry Belcher (Orlando, Fla./Colonial) had 11 points and four helpers, and Bennett finished with 10 points and a team-best six assists on the day.
 
The Giants shot 39.7 percent from the floor, 34.3 percent from beyond the arc, and 66.7 percent from the line against Eastern Mennonite.
 
Keystone will be idle until Wednesday, January 3 when it hosts Cairn University in a Colonial States Athletic Conference contest starting at 4:00 p.m. in the Gambal Athletic Center in La Plume.