AKRON, OHIO – The Akron Zips suffered their first home loss of the season Saturday afternoon, falling to the the Marshall Thundering Herd 75-74 at Rhodes Arena.
“It was a high level game.” Zips head coach John Groce said. “We lost the game on the rebounds as Marshall got 15 second chance points and had 18 second chance points.” The Herd won the battle of the boards 38-29.
UA sophomore Lauren Cristen Jackson scored a career high 26 points, shooting 9-of-18 from the field and five-of-eight from three-point range adding five assists. However it was not enough as Akron (6-4) suffered its second consecutive defeat after a three-game winning streak.
Junior Daniel Utomi added 18 with five rebounds and a blocked shot, while sophomore Tyler Cheese had 14 with four assists and a steal
Marshall (7-4) was led by senior Jon Elmore, who scored 19 points with eight rebounds and six assists. It was his triple from the left arc with 2:49 remaining that proved to be the deciding points in the contest.
Senior C.J., Burks added 13 and freshman Taevion Kinsey came off the bench to score 10.
The victory was Marshall's second consecutive win and first against Mid-American Conference opposition after losses at Ohio and at home to Toledo in overtime.
The Herd used a 7-3 spurt midway through the first half to grab the lead and held it for a majority of the game. Kinsey sparked the run with a slam dunk and added a conventional three-point play to make the score 30-26 at the 8;55 mark.
Marshall stretched the lead to eight on two occasions the second being 38-30 at the 2:51 mark when sophomore Mikael Beyers made both ends of a one-and-one free throw and MU led by six at halftime 42-36.
At the start of the second half, Marshall opened its largest lead of the game, 47-38, with 18:01 remaining on a three from the left corner by Burks, who extended his streak of double digits in games this season to 11.
The Zips chipped away at their deficit. However, when they did get close, Marshall would make a big three-pointer -- whether it came from Elmore or Burks.
UA’s final lead of the game came at 8:29 on a Sales layup. But Marshall came right back and regained the lead 61-60 when George came down the baseline and scored on a dunk. MU then pushed the lead out to six 68-62 following a steal and slam dunk by Byers.
The Zips closed to 70-69 on a conventional three-point play by Jackson with 5:05 remaining.
After Elmore’s three, Akron took advantage of a pair of turnovers by Burks. Junior Daniel Utomi capitalized with a transition layup and then a three from the right corner to close the deficit to one with 1:31 remaining.
In the closing moments, Elkmore and Burks both missed threes that would have sealed the game.
Akron had the ball and Utomi missed a three, When Jackson missed a short jumper in the lane, the rebound went out of bounds. Officials used the video replay and awarded Akron the ball wit 1.1 seconds remaining.
Jackson got the ball from the inbound but his shot from the baseline hit the side the backboard and Marshall came away with its second straight win over the Zips.
The key stats in the game were:
1. Marshall’s 38-29 rebound edge…
2. Fifteen of those caroms cam,e on the offensiveend, which led to 15 second chance points.
3. Akron turned the ball over 15 times and MU capitalized with 18 points.
The rest of the stat story was pretty much even as UA shot 46.4 percent from the field, going 11-of-28 from three-point range while Marshall was at 42.9 percent and 12-of-26 from the arc. MU had 16 turnovers.
The Zips return to action on Tursday night as they continue the stretch of four of five games at home when they face the Tigers of Tennessee State from the Ohio Valley Conference.