M-Basketball: #1 Rock Valley College improves to 25-2 with 20 point win over Joliet
Box Score The Rock Valley College men's basketball team defeated conference rival Joliet Junior College 93-73 on Wednesday to avenge an earlier season loss at Joliet.
The win improves the #1 ranked team in NJCAA D3 to 25-2 overall, 9-2 N4C conference. Joliet falls to 19-8 overall and 7-4 in the N4C.
(
Craig Doty,
Elijah Williams,
Jace Kitchen - RVC Athletics)
Rock Valley put five players in double-figure scoring led by sophomore big man
Elijah Williams (Chicago, IL) who scored a game-high 23 points (9-14 FG).
Jace Kitchen (DeKalb, IL) played his best offensive game in a Golden Eagle uniform scoring 15 points on 6-7 from the field.
Dalton Payton (Byron, IL) went for 14 points (5-6 FG, 4-4 3PT) while point guard
Mo Jackson (Belvidere, IL) scored 12 points. RVC's leading scorer,
LT Davis (Rockford, IL), battled his way through flu-like symptoms to score 10 points and grab a game-high 6 rebounds.
"Joliet is well-coached and they do a good job mixing up defenses," head coach
Craig Doty stated. "We executed really well in the half court tonight against their zone and man defenses. This was our best shooting performance of the season and it's a testament to our guys being unselfish and their attention to detail."
RVC shot a sizzling 32-52 (.615) from the field on the game including a season-best 59.1% (13-22) from behind the arch. Both teams shot 26 free throws in the contest with RVC making 16 and Joliet converting on 21.
On Saturday Rock Valley travels to River Grove to play the #1 team in NJCAA D2 and conference foe Triton College. Triton received their first #1 national ranking in their program's history last season and met the Golden Eagles in a battle for the conference championship. The D3 #1 Golden Eagles would defeat the D2 #1 Tritons on February 14th, 2015 by a score of 75-72 and both teams would finish 13-1 in the conference to split last years N4C Championship. Game time in River Grove on Saturday is set for 3:00 PM.
