Loyola Maryland Drops Opener To Mount St. Mary's

Among the spate of college basketball games played Saturday night, was the 163rd meeting of Loyola College in Baltimore and Mount St. Mary's of Emmitsburg, MD. 

Mount St. Mary's played well on the road winning 84-76. While Mt. Mary's looked strong in both the frontcourt and the backcourt and led most of the game, the final score is not indicative of the hard fought contest. Mount St. Mary's opened very strong and Loyola fought back to a one-point deficit at half time, 33-34.

The Mount also opened the second half strong and jumped out to a 55-41 lead, but Loyola hung in there and scrapped to within three, 74-77, with 1:32 to play. 

Then the Mount scored seven straight points. Junior guard Jeremy Goode totaled 25 points for the game. In only 17 minutes of play, junior forward Kelly Beidler tore up the court with 17 points and 12 rebounds. 

Loyola's scoring was very balanced with five players scoring in double figures led by Providence transfer guard Jamal Barney and sophomore forward Issac Reid, who each had 14 points. Barney also had five rebounds. 

Loyola made 20 three-point attempts, but only converted on seven.  Indeed sixth-man Marquis Sullivan, normally a sharp shooting spark plug was only one for six for two point attempts and one for five of three-pointers. 

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Mount St. Mary's defense deserves much of the credit for those weak numbers, but Loyola with need to sharpen their field goal shooting.  A bright note was that Loyola out-shot the Mount at the free throw line 90.5 percent (19/21) to 69.0 percent (20/29).

Mount St Mary's will have a tougher opponent on the road at Virginia Tech on Monday.  Loyola hosts Tennessee State at home on Sunday afternoon and plays at Boston College in an NIT game on Monday at 7:00 pm.