by Akron, OH; It was the first of two straight home games for the Akron Zips. But of course they had to start it out the right way with a 87-74 win over the Ball State Cardinals which puts the Zips at 13-4 on the season. While the loss drops the Cardinals to 4-13 on the season. With four players scoring in double digits, you could not have asked for anymore from the offense. “Hats off to Ball State because I thought they competed for 40 minutes tonight from start to finish,” head coach John Groce said following the win. “We only played for 32 minutes I thought.”
Tavari Johnson led the way with 22 points, seven assists, and two rebounds marking it his 10th 20-point game of the season. Amani Lyles tallied up 19 points, 12 rebounds, one assist, one block, and one steal. While Shammah Scott finished with 18 points, four rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block including going 4-for-9 from three.
The game itself started off with a 13-2 lead by Akron as they were shooting a red hot 71% from the floor. “Give the guys credit as they came out strong, but the challenge right now is we have to maintain that mentality, focus, physicality, and max effort for 40 minutes,” Groce said about the start. Ball State quickly punched back going on a 8-4 run cutting it all the way down to a 17-10 deficit. But the Zips would start to get the three ball going from Bowen Hardman, helping it grow back up to a 23-13 lead with 11:17 left in the first half.
It was the road team punching back again though as they proceeded to go on a 13-5 run forcing Groce to call a timeout. The Akron lead was all of a sudden cut down to just 28-26. A big part in all of this was because it was essentially a one man show from Armoni Zeigler. The junior guard finished with 30 points, five rebounds, one assist, and one steal. He even created a new season-high in points within the first 13 minutes of the game.
Leave it up to the home team though as the Zips came away with a 43-34 halftime lead. It was safe to say they kicked it into another gear ending the half. Despite shooting a hot 9-22 from deep to start, the offense was struggling in the paint and knew the job was far from finished.
Akron came out of the half firing on all cylinders as they went on a 10-1 run. With a 53-35 lead, the offense was humming as Johnson finally got going. They were able to open up their largest lead of the game to 74-52 with 7:40 left to play.
But give the Cardinals credit as they maintained some pace for much of the second half having it go anywhere from a 10 to 22 point deficit. In fact, with just 2:27 left to play, they trailed 67-80. Zeigler would keep his offensive explosion going through both halves.
It stayed close through the end as the Zips came out with just a 87-77 win. “Fortunately we were able to build a 22-point lead with eight minutes to go, but the final minutes were really disappointing,” Groce said about the team taking their foot off the gas. With a few days off before their next matchup, you can count on Akron coming ready to play on Saturday against Western Michigan.
