PHILADELPHIA – Junior Ramon Galloway scored 21 points, one short of a career-high, and senior Devon White had a career-high 17 points to lead La Salle past Rider, 82-70, on Saturday afternoon at The Palestra. Sophomore Sam Mills scored 13 points and classmate Tyreek Duren had nine points and eight assists for the Explorers.
“I’m pleased with the win. Our defense was good in the first half but our rebounding was extremely poor,” head coach Dr. John Giannini said. “In the second half, we put things together a little bit and out rebounded them by a good number [nine].”
Senior Earl Pettis had 11 points in the first eight minutes of the game. He left the contest with a finger injury to his left hand and did not return.
With Pettis sidelined, it was Galloway who stepped up in his place. He scored all 21 points after Pettis’ injury and added eight rebounds.
“It was great to see Ramon get back on track,” Giannini said. “It’s also a compliment to our depth because Earl got off to a great start and then went out with the injury and we didn’t miss a beat.”
White had 13 of his 17 points in the second half and collected seven boards. It also broke his previous career-high of 12 points set on Tuesday at Pitt.
Mills was solid as has been the case all season, hitting three three’s for 13 points. He is now shooting 50% from long range. Duren’s eight assists came up one short of a career-high and he committed just two turnovers.
With Pettis leading the charge, La Salle opened up a 10-0 advantage through three minutes. Rider cut the lead to five on multiple occasions and a Jeff Jones three at the buzzer made it 45-41, LU at the break.
Rider never led, but got within one on Danny Stewart’s layup with 15:34 left. La Salle (3-3) then went on a 19-3 run beginning with White’s dunk with 14:40 to play to turn a one-point lead into a 70-53 advantage with 9:21 left.
Rider cut the lead to 11 with 1:55 remaining but could get no closer. Jones scored 24 for the Broncs (1-6), while Duren’s teammate from Neumann-Goretti, Stewart, had 22.
As a team, La Salle took care of the ball, turning it over nine times as opposed to Rider’s 15.
“It was a real big win,” Mills said. “Coach emphasized not losing back-to-back games so we came out strong to make sure that didn’t happen.”
The Explorers are back on campus for three of the next four games, beginning with Wednesday’s contest versus Northeastern at 7 PM.
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