Box Score BALTIMORE – Johns Hopkins jumped to a 15-point halftime lead and the top-seeded and 11th-ranked Blue Jays ended the Bullets' season with a 80-67 victory over fourth-seeded Gettysburg in the semifinals of the Centennial Conference (CC) men's basketball tournament Friday evening at Goldfarb Gym.
Junior center
Kevin Gladstone (Havertown, Pa./Haverford) scored a game-high 19 points and six rebounds to lead the Bullets (15-12), who were making their first appearance in the CC semis since 2011. Senior guard
Joe Emerusabe (Derwood, Md./Magruder) added a season-high 15 points while tying a career-high of six assists. Senior guard
Sean Gordon (Broomall, Pa./Malvern Prep) contributed nine points and a season-high 10 rebounds. He also handed out two assists and finished his career third in school history with 266 assists.
George Bugarinovic netted 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting for the Blue Jays (23-3), who advance to Saturday night's conference championship to face third-seeded and 14th-ranked Dickinson College, an 82-68 winner over second-seeded and 25th-ranked Franklin & Marshall College in the night's first semifinal.
The Bullets led just once on the evening – on a put-back from freshman forward
Cameron Stewart (Sydney, Australia/Newington College) 12 seconds into the game. But the Blue Jays answered with an 18-2 run over the next 6:37 to open up an early 14-point lead.
An Emerusabe 3-pointer made it 26-15 with 9:31 left in the first half, but the Blue Jays answered with another big run, using a 12-2 spurt to open up its largest lead of the night at 38-17 with 5:14 on the clock. Austin Vasiliadis knocked down a jumper with four seconds left in the half to hand the hosts a 48-33 lead at the break.
The Blue Jays shot 62.1 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes and went 7-for-10 from 3-point range.
Gettysburg refused to go away, however, and twice cut the deficit to single digits. A 7-0 Bullet spurt, capped by a 3-ball from sophomore guard
Pete Christ (Pittstown, N.J./Delaware Valley Regional), made it 57-49 with 13:26 to go. However, Jimmy Hammer answered with a trey of his own for the Blue Jays.
Gordon splashed in a triple with 10:11 showing to pull the Bullets to within 61-52, but Hopkins had an answer once again, this time with a decisive 11-0 run that pushed its lead back to 20 (72-52) with 6:10 left. Gettysburg rallied one last time, reeling off a 7-0 run to make it 72-59, but that's as close as the Bullets would get the rest of the way.
Hopkins shot 55.8 percent for the game while the Bullets hit on 43.4 percent of their shots. Gettysburg out-rebounded the Blue Jays 31-28 and shot 14-for-18 at the foul line.
