Moon Township, Pa. - Junior guard Tony Lee (Boston, Mass. / Charlestown) scored 25 points while grabbing eight rebounds and dishing out six assists to lead the Robert Morris University men's basketball team to a 71-63 victory over Wagner Sunday night at the Charles L. Sewall Center. The game was a rescheduled contest originally set to be played Thursday, Feb. 15, but was moved to Sunday night due to inclement weather in the Northeast. The victory improves the Colonials to 16-8 overall on the 2006-07 campaign, including 8-7 in the Northeast Conference, while Wagner slipped to 10-16 overall and 7-8 in league action.
RMU quickly jumped out to a 12-4 advantage in the first five minutes of play as sophomore guard Jeremy Chappell (Cincinnati, Ohio / Northwest) and senior center Freddie Harris (Decatur, Ala. / Lawson State C.C.) each scored four points. The Colonial advantage eventually reached double digits, 19-8, after a three-pointer from Lee at the 12:16 mark of the first half, but the Seahawks used a 6-0 surge to pull within five, 19-14. On a pair of occasions in the last 10 minutes of the first half Robert Morris held a 10-point lead, but Wagner eventually whittled its deficit to seven at halftime, 32-25, after a pair of free throws from Mark Porter with 39 seconds remaining in the first stanza.
The Colonials opened up a 13-point lead, 39-26, after a fastbreak layup from Lee with 16:48 to play, and the advantage eventually swelled to 15, 48-33, at the 10:30 mark of the second half thanks to a 16-8 run to open play after halftime. Lee was all over the court during the spurt, scoring eight points, while senior guard Derek Coleman (Dorchester, Mass. / Charlestown) also added eight points.
Joey Mundweiler then found his stroke from long range for the Seahawks, draining a trio of three-pointers in a stretch of a minute and-a-half to help Wagner close its deficit to seven, 55-48, with just 5:14 to play. Mundweiler then hit his fourth trifecta of the half with 4:06 remaining to close the Seahawks within four, 57-53, but Chappell answered with a jumper to keep RMU up six, 59-53. Porter closed the Seahawks to within four again with a runner in the lane, but on RMU's next possession the Wagner bench was assessed a technical foul. Coleman promptly sank both free throws, and after getting the ball inbounds Lee was fouled with 3:05 to play and hit a pair from the charity stripe to push RMU to an eight-point lead, 63-55.
Llewchean Radford closed Wagner to within six, 63-57, after a layup off an offensive rebound, but Chappell's dunk on a long pass from Lee with 1:53 to go kept the Seahawks at bay. Lee sealed the win with four free throws in the last 1:03 of action, while senior forward A.J. Jackson (Monessen, Pa. / Monessen) added a dunk on a fast break to close it out.
Lee hit on seven of his 12 shots from the field and nine of his 12 free-throw opportunities for his 25 points to take home game high honors, while Chappell chipped in with 14 points, Coleman 12 and Jackson 10 for Robert Morris. Porter and Ulrich each scored 16 points to lead Wagner, while Mundweiler contributed 15 points.
Robert Morris is next in action Thursday, Feb. 22, when it opens a two-game road trip with a 7:00 p.m. tilt at Central Connecticut State.
Notes: Lee's eight rebounds pushed his career total to 505, helping become just the 13th player in school history with 500 career boards ... Lee now ranks 10th all-time in rebounds at Robert Morris ... Coleman's 12-point performance against the Seahawks leaves him 10 points shy of 1,000 for his career, while Lee is 29 points short ... The Colonials held a 41-32 edge on the backboard but were outrebounded, 13-9, in offensive caroms ... Coleman played a full 40 minutes and over the last two nights played 88 of a possibly 90 minutes ... As a club RMU shot 51.0 percent (26-for-51) from the field, the 10th time in the last 16 games the Colonials have shot 50 percent or better ... Wagner converted just 35 percent (21-for-60) of its field goal attempts.
