THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502120214
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Saturday was a night of personal milestones that added up to a rock-solid team effort for Old Dominion's basketball team.
The Monarchs beat American, 91-74, to retain first place in the Colonial Athletic Association, one game ahead of James Madison. Old Dominion (14-10, 9-1) had six players in double figures for the first time since the 1992-93 season in amassing its most points since mid-December. Career highs abounded on the Monarchs' stat sheet.
``This is the best we've played in a real long time,'' ODU forward Petey Sessoms said. ``We played well as a team, especially rebounding and on the defensive end.''
ODU had been outrebounded in four consecutive games, but had a 42-29 advantage over the Eagles (5-17, 4-6).
``That's mental,'' Sessoms said of ODU's recent board woes. ``You get away from it and concentrate on other things, and that's why teams had been killing us on the boards.''
Sessoms had a career-high 16 rebounds to go with 31 points. He moved ahead of Ronnie McAdoo into fifth place on ODU's career scoring charts with 1,795 points, 16 shy of fourth-place Chris Gatling.
``We just didn't do a good job against Sessoms. . . . But nobody has this year,'' Eagles coach Chris Knoche said.
The double-double was Sessoms' 10th this season. While those have become almost the norm for him, fellow senior David Harvey notched the first of his career Saturday. Harvey had career highs in both points (16) and rebounds (10).
Harvey said he, Sessoms and Mike Jones - ODU's other senior - caucused Friday night and decided to push themselves and the team through the rest of the season, which has just two more home games.
``We made an oath to reassert ourselves these last three home games,'' he said. ``We want to go out as champions, and we're going to do everything we can to do that.''
Harvey did everything that could have been expected of him. He made 7 of 8 field goal tries with some of his strongest inside moves of the season. He also guarded American forward Christian Ast, who lit ODU up for 15 points in the first half but was limited to four shots and five points in the second, when he was plagued by foul trouble.
``We wanted to attack him on our offensive end while he was on defense and try to get him in a little foul trouble,'' ODU coach Jeff Capel said. ``I thought we did a good job of getting the ball down in there and guys took the ball strong right at him.''
Point guard Brion Dunlap made most of the special deliveries to the post. The freshman had his finest offensive performance of the season, penetrating effectively and dishing off (nine assists, no turnovers) as well as finishing (career-high 12 points).
Mario Mullen and Jones scored 11 points and backup guard E.J. Sherod had 10 to round out the double-figure club for ODU.
Jones became the 33rd Monarch to reach 1,000 career points when he made a first-half 3-pointer.
ODU led by a point at halftime, but opened the second half with an 11-0 run. American got back within six points a couple times, but ODU steadily pulled away in the game's final 10 minutes.
``We got beat in a lot of ways tonight,'' Knoche said. by CNB