RedStorm Men Set to Host Rival Shawnee State
RIO GRANDE, Ohio – The University of Rio Grande men’s basketball team will seek its fourth straight win overall and its fourth straight Mid-South Conference triumph when rival Shawnee State University visits the Newt Oliver Arena on Saturday for a 4 p.m. tipoff.
Rio Grande (10-5 overall, 3-1 MSC) is coming off a 79-72 win over defending national champion and then-No. 2-ranked Georgetown College, last Saturday.
The win, just the fifth for Rio in 27 all-time meetings with the Tigers, marked the program’s first three-game MSC win streak and two-game road winning streak in league play.
Sophomore Phillip Hertz (Rungsted Kyst, Denmark) led Rio Grande with 22 points and 10 rebounds in the victory, while junior forward Josh Reagan (Cleveland, OH) had his second straight 20 point-outing off the bench. On Monday, Reagan was named the MSC Player of the Week.
Senior guard Jermaine Warmack (Orange, NJ) and junior guard Evan Legg (Piketon, OH) added 10 points each in the win, while Warmack also had a team-best five steals and four assists.
Hertz continues to lead head coach Ken French’s squad in scoring at 15.0 points per game, while Reagan is scoring at a 14.3 ppg clip, Warmack averages 11.3 points per contest and freshman forward Bilal Young (Cleveland, OH) averages 10.6 points and a team-best 7.9 rebounds per outing.
Warmack also leads Rio in both assists (3.9 apg) and steals (2.7 spg).
Shawnee State is coming off of a 73-67 loss at the University of the Cumberlands last Saturday.
Andrew Devlin had 16 points and nine rebounds to pace the Bears (7-8, 1-3) in a losing cause, while Trevor Banks also netted 16 points and Andrew Bendolph finished with 10.
Banks, a 6-foot-4 senior guard, leads Shawnee in scoring at 15.7 ppg, while senior forward Mark Bryant (6-6) checks in at 10.7 points and a team-high 8.1 rebounds per contest. The duo are the only players on the Bears’ roster currently averaging in double figures.
Devlin, a 6-5 senior center, is narrowly missing a “double-double” average for the season at 9.9 points and 7.8 rebounds per game.
Saturday’s game will be the 57th all-time meeting between the two schools and the winner will receive the Dick Hyland Memorial Trophy, which is named in honor of Frank D. “Dick” Hyland, a 1946 Rio Grande graduate, who sat on the Alumni Board at Rio Grande and the Board of Trustees at Shawnee State prior to his death in April of 2003.
A live webcast of the game will be available at www.ihigh.com/redstorm, with pregame activities beginning at approximately 3:45 p.m
