Camels fall to Runnin' Bulldogs 72-64 in Big South first round

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CONWAY, S.C. – Jerome Hill scored 17 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for his 16th double-double of the year to lead Gardner-Webb to a 72-64 win over Campbell Wednesday in the first round of the VisitMyrtleBeach.com Big South Championship at The HTC Center.

Tyrell Nelson and Harold McBride added 15 each for GWU, while Adonis Burbage chipped in 10 for the seventh-seeded Runnin' Bulldogs (19-13), who will meet second seed High Point (22-8) in Friday's 6:00 p.m. quarterfinal.

Big South all-freshman team choice Curtis Phillips led 10th-seeded Campbell (10-22) with 20 points and six rebounds. Reco McCarter and Troy Harper had 13 each for the Camels, who were unable to recover from a 19-point deficit in the opening half.

Gardner-Webb made all seven of its shots in a 21-6 run late in the first half. Nelson's two free throws capped the burst that included four 3-pointers and GWU led 40-21 with 59.3 seconds to go in the period.

McCarter converted an old-fashioned 3-point play; then his block set up Troy Harper's lay-in at the buzzer that cut the Runnin' Bulldogs' halftime lead to 40-26.

Nehemiah Mabson's follow basket in the final minute trimmed the gap to 70-64, but the Camels drew no closer.

Gardner-Webb hit 6-of-11 (.545) from long range in the first half, 14-of-28 (.500) overall, and out-rebounded the Camels 20-6 in the opening period, resulting in a 14-2 edge in second-chance points. Nelson scored 13 points and grabbed six rebounds before intermission.

Campbell shot 43.5 percent overall (10-23) in the first stanza, 2-of-10 from 3-point distance. McCarter had nine first-half points.

On the day, GWU out-rebounded the Camels 40-25 and made more free throws (22-30) than Campbell attempted (11-16).

GWU shot 42 percent overall (21-50) and made 8-of-20 threes (.400). The Camels hit 41.8 percent of their shots (23-55), 7-of-22 from long range (.318).

The Camels played without starting point guard Kyre' Hamer, who injured an ankle on Feb. 14 and played only 11 minutes over the final five games.

McCarter and fellow red-shirt senior Andrew Ryan concluded their careers Wednesday. Ryan finished with nine points to close his career with 1041 to finish 14th on CU's career Division I era (since '77-78) scoring list. He finished 5th in program history in 3-pointers made (199), started the final 70 games of his career and set the school record with 129 games played.

In three years, McCarter scored 947 career points, 17th on the school's Division I era charts. He ranked ninth in career steals (118) and stood 6th in the league this year with 1.52 thefts per outing.

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