Box Score LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Fueled by a late second half 25-0 run, the fifth ranked Bellarmine Knights turned a tight battle into a runaway 91-70 win over  the Quincy Hawks in a Great Lakes Valley Conference contest on Saturday afternoon in Knights Hall.
 
With 9:55 remaining in the game, Bellarmine faced a 59-54 deficit, but came out of the under-10 media timeout with an 8-0 run to reclaim the lead.  Then after a free throw by Quincy's Herm Senor at the 7:31 mark trimmed the BU lead to one at 65-64, the Knights exploded for 25 unanswered points over the next six minutes. 
 
During that stretch, the Knights made eight of 11 field goals, drained all six of their free throws, and outrebounded the Hawks by an 11-2 margin.  Meanwhile, Quincy missed three front ends of one-and-one free throw situations and was 0-7 from the field.
 
Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport said of the run, "It's sharing the basketball.  Rusty Troutman is a great example.  I said to Rusty, 'great players affect the game in a lot of ways.  They deflect balls; they create loose ball turnovers; they rebound the ball out of their area; they get people shots; they make open shots,' and when he hit that three, that was as loud as I've heard this place in a long time. They couldn't hear me; maybe that's why they played better."
 
When the dust had settled, the final stat sheet showed Bellarmine's Chris Whitehead led all scorers with 22 and also recorded a game-high six assists.  Jake Thelen finished with his 11^th double-double of the year, totaling 19 points and 13 rebounds.  Five different Knights reached double figures with Josh Sewell contributing 14, George Suggs totaling 12, and Troutman adding 11.
 
With the win, the Knights also reached the 20-win plateau for the seventh consecutive year in improving to 20-2 overall and 12-1 in league play. 
 
"I couldn't be happier for a group of kids, because I'm with them every day and I know how hard they work." Davenport said. "What I told them after the game is that their play did their talking today.  Great teams don't have to tell anybody, their play will do the talking."
 
The Knights, who were second in the nation in field goal percentage coming into the game, struggled to get shots to drop in the first half, but came back in the second period to make 15 of 29 and get their game total to 48.3 percent.  While the Knights had trouble shooting from the floor, their stroke was sweet at the free throw line, where they made 27 of 32 attempts while Quincy was just seven of 14. 
 
Quincy took control of the game late in the first half and maintained that lead into second period by dominating the glass.  With 10 minutes left in the game, they owned an 11-rebound advantage and had outscored the Knights 15-2 in second chance points.  In the end, the Hawks outrebounded the Knights, but the margin was just two (40-38), and the Knights had closed the gap in second chance points to 17-11.
 
Scottie Bruxvoort came off the bench to lead Quincy with 21 points, and Dalton Hoover went a perfect 7-of-7 from the field to score 14. The Hawks fell to 11-12, 5-8 GLVC.
 
Bellarmine returns to action on Thursday at Maryville and will stay in St. Louis to take on the Tritons of Missouri-St. Louis on Saturday afternoon.

BOX SCORE (HTM)