DEMOREST — In their largest victory in conference play this season, the Piedmont College men's basketball team showed out with an 86-63 victory at home Wednesday night against Maryville.
Maryville did not hit a shot from the field in the opening 4:22 of the game as Piedmont would hold the Scots to a similar scoreless stretch in the second half as well with the Lions putting in one of their best defensive performances of the season. PC raced out to an 8-0 lead over the first four-plus minutes of the contest and held a 43-38 lead at the break never relinquishing its grip on the lead throughout the night.
In the second half, the Lions did not allow Maryville to connect on a field goal from the 18:27 mark to the 12:43 mark taking control for good during that stretch sparked by a Peyton Luken three-pointer from the corner. Luken's three put Piedmont up seven but the lead would ballon to 15 before the midway point of the period as the Lions outscored the Scots 43-25 in the second half alone.
The star of the night was ironically enough was the same from the last time these two programs met in Cave Arena as it was then-sophomore Trae Gaines that hit a 40-foot buzzer beater to hand Piedmont a win over its conference rival, a play that made its way onto the pages at ESPN.com and was a nominee for the GEICO Play of the Year.
Now a junior for head coach Greg Neeley, Gaines looked the part of the savvy veteran tonight as "Mr. Big Shot" rose up to hit on eight of his nine field goal tries missing only once with that off-target effort rattling out from three-point land. Gaines led all scorers with 22 points on a night that saw the Lions pull away to win big late with the 86-63 victory over Maryville.
Piedmont held Maryville to just 25 percent shooting from the field on the night while hitting on better than 52 percent itself as the Lions' top three scorers combined to go 18-of-26 from the field and 8-of-13 from beyond the 3-point arc. The Lions were also fierce on the boards out-rebounding MC 52-36 on the night.
