Bear Shots

BALTIMORE, Md. -- The Morgan State Bears started well, but it's the ending that needed work.
 
The Bears scored 10 of the first 12 points of the game. However, the cross-town rival Coppin State Eagles had the last laugh before a sold out crowd at Hill Field House in their 88-77 win over the Bears on Senior Day.
 
Morgan State (7-22, 5-10 MEAC) started the game the way they wanted to, led by Cliff Cornish and Torin Childs-Harris. A dunk by Childs-Harris gave the Bears a 10-2 opening advantage with 16:03 remaining.
 
Coppin State (7-21, 6-9 MEAC) charged back, using the three-pointer to their advantage. Threes by Sterling Smith, Christian Kessee and Tariq Cephas helped tie the game at 13 with 14:22 left.
 
It was nip and tuck through most of the first half from there. The Bears took their last lead at 32-31 on an Emmanuel Matey lay-up with 6:26 left. But Coppin would take the lead for good on the next possession. Coppin's Javari Josiah missed a driving lay-up attempt, but Dallas Gary came in behind Josiah and dunked in the rebound to give the Eagles a 33-32 lead with 5:59 left in the first half.
 
Coppin started stretching the advantage from there and took a 51-43 halftime lead to the locker room.
 
The Eagles hit 57.6% of their shots in the first half. That included a blistering 72.7% from three-point range (8-of-11) in that instance compared to Morgan State's 39% overall and 40% from three-point range (4-of-10).
 
The Eagles came out of the locker room ready to run, outscoring the Bears 13-6 in the first six minutes of the second half. They would lead by as much as 15 on a Smith three-pointer that made the score 64-49 with 13:48 left in the game.
 
Morgan made a run at Coppin a few times, cutting the deficit to seven on four different occasions. The last being 81-74 on Donte Pretlow's jumper with 3:32 remaining. The closest Morgan came was within six on an alley oop dunk from Matey to Cedric Blossom, who recorded a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds on the night, which made it 82-76 with 2:24 remaining.
 
But Coppin shortly put the game away on a driving lay-up from Daquan Brickhouse and a Cephas jumper which stretched the lead to 86-76 with 56 seconds left.
 
Five Eagles scored in double figures in the game led by Sterling Smith with 21 points. Morgan State was led by Andrew Hampton with 18 points and kept the Bears in the game early with four three-pointers.
 
Morgan heads to UMES on Thursday night to wrap up the regular season.
 
Bear Note
Before the game, the Bears honored senior guard Blake Bozeman, the son of head coach Todd Bozeman.