George Fox Has Final Surge to Take 88-84 Win over CMS Men's Basketball

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Will King had 24 points on 9-12 shooting and Josh Angle added 21, but George Fox had the final surge in a back-and-forth second half with a late 10-0 run to take an 88-84 win over the Stags on the first day of the David Wells Classic on Friday night at Roberts Pavilion.

The loss drops CMS to 2-2 on the season, while George Fox improves to 4-1 with the win. 

George Mason held a narrow 46-43 lead at the break after being up by as many as nine points in the first half. The second half was back-and-forth the whole way, with CMS pulling ahead 82-77 with 2:57 left on an Angle lay-up off a pass from Rhett Carter. 

However, the last blow in a half full of counter-punches came from the Bruins, as they scored the next 10 points, with Samuel Stewart knocking down a three-pointer off a feed from Momo Stokes to start the spurt. After a defensive stop, Stokes then buried a deep three-pointer from the top of the key to put his team ahead to stay, and then made a tough runner in the lane to make it an 85-82 lead with 1:07 to go. 

After George Fox earned another stop and ran the clock down, Carter blocked the initial effort from Stokes, but Nick Greenwood was able to get to the offensive rebound and draw a foul. He split one out of two at the line to make it a two-possession game, and then James Moore went 1-of-2 as well to make it an 87-82 lead. James Frye had a lay-up to cut the lead to three, but Greenwood was able to make the first of two at the line with five seconds left to seal it. 

CMS took its first lead of the second half 53-52 on an Angle jump shot, and after George Fox went ahead 56-55, the Stags scored the next six points to go ahead by five at 61-56. An Angle three-pointer made it 64-58, but the Bruins counter-punched with back-to-back threes to tie it right back up at 64-64. Another 6-0 run put the Stags ahead 75-70 after four straight King points, and the teams traded baskets until the final 10-0 surge from George Fox. 

King had six assists and five rebounds to go with his 24 points. Max McCalla added nine points for the Stags, while Reid Jones had eight. 

CMS will be back in action tomorrow on the second day of the David Wells Classic against Carleton, which will be held at Pomona-Pitzer at 4 p.m.