MONTGOMERY, W.V.—Led by a 19-point, 11-rebound effort from Chris Dowe, the No. 5 Bellarmine University Knights improved to 5-0 with an 80-69 road win over the Golden Bears of West Virginia Tech in a non-conference, non-divisional game at the Neal Baisi Athletic Center.

Defensively, the Knights did a solid job on Tech's high-scoring point guard David Rawlinson, who came in averaging 24.8 points per game but was bottled up for just eight points on 3-of-13 shooting. 

“If you don't pack your defense on the road, you have no chance,” said Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport,” so I'm very proud of our guys.” 

The coach also was pleased with the team effort. “(The win) came from so many different places,” he said, “Jake Thelen goes six for seven and had 12 points and five rebounds; Jelani (Johnson) has seven points and five rebounds, and Chris and Vance (Hall) were incredible.”

The final margin of 11 points doesn't reflect the closeness of the game.  The Golden Bears grabbed a lead early in the first half, then led most of the opening period before the Knights went on a 14-2 run to take a 39-32 halftime lead. 

The home team came back after the break and trimmed the Bellarmine margin to just three on several occasions, but the Knights responded by running out to a 13-point lead and held on for the victory by hitting 10 of 11 second half free throws. The lone missed free throw resulted in an offensive rebound by Max Clemons with just a minute remaining. 

A total of four Knights hit double figures.  In addition to Dowe's 19 and Thelen's 12, Vance Hall continued his stellar play with 17 points while Keisten Jones added 12.   Dowe also led the Knights with six assists as the Knights totaled 18 assists on their 29 made baskets. 

“Our passing of the basketball got us our 52 percent shooting (in the second half),” Davenport said, noting that the Knights made 67 percent of their shots inside the 3-point arc. “That was either getting in transition or our interior passing, so that was good to see.”

While Bellarmine contained the Golden Bears point guard's scoring, Rawlinson still found a way to help his team by dishing out eight assists as five Tech players scored in double figures, led by Terrale Clark with 16.

For the game, Bellarmine shot 48.3 percent to WVT's 42.2 percent, and the Knights held a 39-30 advantage in rebounding. 

Today's game was the first true road game for the 2012-13 Knights team, having played two home game and two neutral site games heading into today's contest.

Bellarmine returns to action at home on Saturday, Dec. 8 with a 2:30 p.m. contest.

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