CHICAGO - The Green Bay Phoenix closed the regular season by
earning its 20th victory of the year with a convincing 87-71 win
over the Loyola Ramblers (14-15, 5-13) Saturday afternoon at the Gentile
Center. Green Bay has now posted back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time
since a three-year run from 1993-94 through 1995-96.
The Phoenix (20-11, 11-7) exploded out of the gates and
never looked back, taking a 20-point lead (50-30) into intermission. The 50
points were the most scored by Green Bay in any half this season.
Troy Cotton (Milwaukee, Wis.) had 17 of his 19 points in the
first half on the strength of 4 of 5 shooting from 3-point range, while Rahmon Fletcher (Kansas City, Mo.) chimed in with 15 on a trio of threes. The Phoenix
went 9 of 16 from beyond the arc in the opening stanza and shot 57.6 percent
(19 for 33) from the field.
Green Bay, which never trailed, led by double digits for the
final 31 minutes of the contest. The Phoenix shot 33-for-62 (.563) from the
floor and committed just eight turnovers.
Fletcher finished with a game-high 23 points and six
assists. The Phoenix also received 16 points and a half-dozen assists from Bryquis Perine (Milwaukee, Wis.).
As a result of its third-place finish in the Horizon League,
the Phoenix finished in the top four of the conference standings for the
seventh consecutive season. The team entered the campaign as one of just 18
schools in the nation to achieve that in the past six years.
The Phoenix has earned the third seed in the 2010 Speedway
Horizon League Championship and will host a first-round game against No. 10
Youngstown State at the Resch Center Tuesday at 7 p.m. The winner of that game
will face the winner of sixth-seeded Valparaiso and No. 7 Detroit on Friday in
Indianapolis.
--GreenBayPhoenix.com--
