Guilford College Quakers men’s basketball team tops Sewanee tonight and now face Wittenburg in the NCAA DIII Regional Finals on Saturday night at 7pm in the Ragan-Brown Field House on the Guilford College campus:Marcus Curry(Northern Guilford HS) leads the way with 17 pts.

Reports from Twitter on the Guilford College Quakers’ 97-59 win over Sewanee tonight at the Ragan-Brown Field House…

@goquakers
With Guilford’s men’s basketball win over Sewanee Friday, Guilford hosts Wittenberg Saturday at 7 in Ragan-Brown. Tickets are available for sale from 2-4 PM Sat. In the Ragan-Brown lobby. Gates open at 5:30. The 1st 100 Guilford students w/a current ID can get a free ticket from 2-4.

from Brian Formica at WXII TV 12:
A HUGE congrats to the Guilford College men’s hoops team. They topped Sewanee tonight in the first round of the NCAA DIII Tournament.
Advance to play Wittenberg on Saturday at 7 PM! @goquakers

from Andy Durham at GreensboroSports.com:

Guilford was led in scoring by Marcus Curry, from Northern Guilford High School, with 17 points…Josh Logan added 14 points for Guilford and Kyler Gregory provided 13 points and 11 rebounds…Guilford got 10 points each from Carson Long and Liam Ward and Ward’s points were bench points and Guilford got 34 points from its reserves this evening…Big time bench effort from the Quakers…

The Quakers got off to a very quick start in the game(11-0 run by Guilford to begin the contest) and they took a 56-30 lead into the halftime break…Guilford was killing it from three-point range and for the night, Guilford was 14-26 from behind the arc, shooting a lofty 53.8%, from three-point range…I made this personal note during the game and it reads like this, “When the Big Guys can shoot three’s as good as the guards do, you know the opposing team in is Big Trouble”….And that was the case tonight…Three three’s for the MC/Marcus Curry, with MC going three-for-three from three….

From the field overall, Guilford goes 37-65 for 56.9%…..Nobody is going to sneeze at numbers like those…Quakers just 9-14 from the free throw line, going for 64.3% from the charity stripe…Need to improve on the FT numbers, and get them up….Will need to convert on the 80%-plus range, with the game on the line in tight situations…

I think Guilford head coach Tom Palumbo and assistant coach Ronnie Thomas will like these numbers, Guilford out-rebounded Sewanee, 51-24 on Friday night….They got double the boards that Sewanee did…

Again, Kyler Gregory led the Quakers’ board work with 11 rebounds, and just a bit back was Steve Ruszala with 6 rebounds off of the Quaker bench….Liked that bench effort from Ruszala and just a superb game off of Tom Palumbo’s bench from Liam Ward, who tied for Quaker honors with starting PG Jaylen Gore with both dishing out four, assists…Ward was smooth as the water in Quaker Lake on a clear day…The water in Quaker lake was a total mud-mess today…Another strong game from and on the floor for Gore(Northwest Guilford High School) and he finished with 9 points to go along with those 4 assists…Plus from the point, to do more than dish, is the wish you have for Gore, just do more, and he did…Gore also had 7 key rebounds for the Quakers…Six of Gore’s rebounds were coming from the defensive end..

Ward was just simply amazing to me, mainly because I had not seen him play that much before, but with Gore, Ward, Will Leckonby, Luke Harkins and others, Guilford had the guard slot covered tonight, and we even saw Eli Short, the former Page Pirate, getting some minutes(6) in this key NCAA DII playoff game…

Excellent start for the GC Quakers tonight and on Saturday they will face Wittenburg, 100-88 winners over Emory in the first game at Guilford tonight….Game time for Guilford-Wittenburg is 7pm on Saturday night….

**********Just a one night observation, but Marcus Curry(Northern Guilford HS) should have shot at making the NBA G League, the way he was playing tonight…This young man is playing strong right now and he has come a long, long way, since his days back when he was a Northern Guilford Nighthawk…**********

++++++++++Hoping to get some more notes on this game from Bob Lowe or Dave Walters later on tonight…..++++++++++

BTW:Guilford now sits at (22-7) on the season.

************************************************************************************************************************************
from Dave Walters, Guilford College SID:

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Marcus Curry led five Quakers in double-figure scoring in Guilford College’s 97-50 win over the University of the South (Sewanee) in Friday’s first round of the NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Tournament.

The win sends Guilford (22-7) into a second-round contest against Wittenberg University (24-5), a 100-88 winner over Emory University earlier Friday in Guilford’s Ragan-Brown Field House. Guilford will host the second-round game Saturday (3/2) at 7:00 p.m.

The Quakers raced to a 56-30 halftime lead on the strength of 9-of-14 (64.3%) 3-point shooting in the opening half. Guilford’s Joah Logan made three 3-pointers in the first half and joined Curry as the Quakers’ top scorer after 20 minutes with 11 points. Kyler Gregory scored five of his 13 points in the game in the opening two-plus minutes as Guilford score the game’s first 11 points.

Cam Caldwell finally got the Tigers (22-7) on the board at the 17:12 mark, but the damage was done and the tone was set. Playing before a boisterous crowd of over 1,200 people, Guilford gradually extended its early 11-point advantage with highly accurate outside shooting. When Sewanee tried to get back into the game, another Quaker delivered a clutch basket, often from long range.

The second half featured more of the same as the Quakers’ lead swelled to 39 with 1:57 left in regulation. Guilford was able to rest many regulars with little difference as the Quakers’ reserves outscored their Sewanee counterparts, 34-12.

Curry made 7-of-8 shots from the floor, including all three 3-pointers, for a game-high 17 points. Logan shot 4-for-4 from distance and netted 14 points in just 15 minutes. Gregory collected his eighth double-double of the season with 13 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. Carson Long and Liam Ward both chipped in 10 points. Guilford enjoyed a 51-24 edge in rebounds and limited Sewanee to 18.2 percent (6 of 33) 3-point shooting.

Jordan Warlick scored a team-high 14 points for Sewanee, but only two after halftime. Hunter Buescher finished with 11 points and Tigers’ leading scorer Luke Smith scored nine points, over 11 below his season average.

Guilford’s win sets up a meeting with Wittenberg, which outlasted Emory University, 100-88, in an up-tempo contest. The Tigers had three students score in double figures to win their 11th straight game. Jake Bertemes led the way with 22 points, followed by Connor Seipel’s 21, which included 15 in the second half. James Johnson made all four 3-point shots and finished with 20 points. Wittenberg shot 59.3 percent from the floor, including 11-of-20 (55%) from 3-point land.

Emory (20-6) had a five-point lead just over seven minutes into the game before the Tigers awoke. Wittenberg outscored the Eagles, 25-10, over a seven-minute span midway through the first half. The Tigers made four 3-pointers in the run, two by Rashaad Ali-Shakir. Bertemes’ final hoop of the half opened a 12-point spread before the lead settled at 51-41 at the break.

Seipel scored just six first-half points due to two early fouls, but the 6-6, 240-pound junior got on track in the second half when he made 5-of-6 shots and all five free throws.

Romin Williams’ 3-pointer with 12:41 left in regulation got Emory to within 64-59, but Wittenberg reeled off the next seven points and did not look back. The Eagles shot 50 percent from the floor in the second half (18-of-36) and just under 56% (33-59) for the game, but the Tigers shot 57.1 percent from the floor and made 15-of-17 free throws in the second half.

Emory’s Matthew Schner scored a game-high 25 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the floor with four 3-pointers. Williams finished with 17 and Lawrence Rowley added 15 for Emory, which lost for just the second time when scoring at least 88 points.

Saturday’s second-round game between Guilford and Wittenberg begins at 7:00 p.m. in the Ragan-Brown Field House. Tickets may be purchased from 2-4 p.m. in the Ragan-Brown Field House lobby and when the gates open at 5:30 p.m. Current Guilford students with a valid ID can stop by Ragan-Brown between 2 and 4 to pick up a free ticket.

Dave Walters
Guilford College Athletics

Photos by Andy Gore
[AFG_gallery id=’342′]