ORANGEBURG, South Carolina — After having a strong first half, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore men's basketball team saw the South Carolina State University Bulldogs claw their way back into the game and escape with a 70-63 victory over the Hawks on Saturday afternoon (February 19).

"We had some shots go in during the first half and in the second half some of those similar type shots didn't go in" head coach Jason Crafton said. "We were disappointed because we got in the bonus early (in the second half), we wanted to be more aggressive driving the ball but I think we shot too many threes in spots and didn't take advantage of being in the bonus."

The Hawks were hot from the outset of the game. In the opening 20 minutes, the team shot 65.2% from the field and 71.4% from behind the arc.

SC State scored the opening bucket of the game and Eastern Shore would score the next 10 points of the contest. Junior Kevon Voyles hit a jumper to score the first two of the game and senior Nathaniel Pollard, Jr. had a tip in off his own miss on the next possession to make the score 4-2 at the 18:01 mark.

The final six points of the run came from long distance. Freshman Chace Davis and junior Da'Shawn Phillip hit back to back 3-pointers to make the score 10-2 in favor of the Hawks with 16:33 on the clock.

Over the next five minutes SCSU went on a run of their own to tie the game at 13. Davis would hit another shot from long range to break the tie at the 11:20 mark and the Hawks would keep the lead the rest of the half.

Eastern Shore continued to build their lead and would get up by double digits following a 3-pointer from junior Kohen Thompson at the 6:58 mark. The Hawks led 28-18 at that point.

SC State would go on a 14-5 spurt over the next three and a half minutes to make the score 33-32 in favor of the Hawks. Thompson and Pollard, Jr. would make back to back layups on consecutive possessions to make the score 37-32 with 1:29 left in the first half. The Bulldogs would hit two free throws after that before senior Donchevell "Tuka" Nugent made a layup with 12 seconds on the clock to give the Hawks a 39-34 lead at halftime.

Following the break, the Hawks were slow getting out of the gate from the field. Their first made field goal came from a Phillip shot behind the arc after a little over three minutes had been played. Voyles hit another three on the next possession and The Shore led 47-42 with 15:52 left.

After the Voyles shot, Maryland Eastern Shore went more than nine minutes without making a shot from the field. They would not see a shot from the field go in until Nugent had a 3-point play with 6:42 remaining to give the squad a 55-53 advantage.

SC State would score five straight to lead 58-55 with under four minutes left to play. Voyles hit a three to tie the score at 58 with 3:42 left. Nugent would knock down a pair at the line at the 2:51 mark and put the team up 60-58.

The Bulldogs came back with another five straight points to lead 63-60 with 1:57 left. After a timeout by SCSU, the Hawks drew up a play for Voyles and he delivered with another shot from long range to tie the score at 63 with 1:49 remaining. Unfortunately for Eastern Shore, that would be the last points of the game for the squad.

Rahsaan Edwards hit a 3-pointer on the right wing with 53 seconds left to break the tie. He would also go 4-4 from the foul line in the final minute to secure the win for the home team.

After the strong shooting in the first 20 minutes, the iron was unkind to the Hawks after the break as they shot 16.7% after halftime. They were 28.6% from 3-point range, but they did shoot 90.9% from the free throw line in the second half to keep their lead for much of the game.

The Hawks had a balanced offensive effort led by Voyles as he scored a career high 15 points on Saturday to lead the squad in scoring. Davis had 12 points, while Nugent and Phillip each had 11. Antonio Madlock finished with a game-high 18 points for the Bulldogs.

"It's good to see the balance, but we need more execution of the type of action we need to be able to close the game out because I thought we had poor decision making in crunch time," Crafton said. "We only had 14 turnovers, which is good for us, but our decisions in key moments and making key reads were not up to par, so we need to get collective improvement in our decision making from our guards."

Maryland Eastern Shore is now headed to Durham, North Carolina for a Monday night (February 21) matchup with North Carolina Central.