AVE MARIA, Fla. — The Ave Maria Men's Basketball team hit triple digits for the fifth time this season and the second time in a row as they beat the Coastal Georgia Mariners 101-87. Michael Klekas led the way for the Gyrenes with a career-high 36 points and became just the second ever Gyrenes to score more than 1600 points in a career.
The first half was very tight between the Gyrenes and Mariners and was similar to the first meeting between the two in November. Ave Maria opened the scoring with back-to-back jumpers from Klekas, but four straight free throws from Coastal Georgia tied it up.
In the first 15 minutes of the game, there were 10 different lead changes as neither team could get more than four points ahead of the other. Half of those lead changes were in the span of five minutes as the two traded buckets and the leads.
With a little over six minutes remaining in the first half, Marlon Bennett knocked down two three pointers to tie the game at 31. After a possession from each team, Bennett hit a layup to put Ave Maria up 33-31, a lead they would hold onto for the rest of the game. Bennett swiped the ball away from Coastal Georgia on the following play and found Jack Watkins who jammed the ball through the basket and forced the Mariners to call a timeout.
Ave Maria continued to add to their lead and went into the locker room up 49-42 at the break.
Coastal Georgia knocked down a three for the first basket of the second half, but the rest of the frame was all Ave Maria. The Gyrenes went on a 14-4 run after the trifecta from CCGA to race out to a 14-point lead. AMU got two three-pointers themselves during the run, one from Klekas and one from Watkins.
For the rest of the game, the margin hung around 10-14 points. At times, the Mariner would bring the deficit back down to single digits, but the Gyrenes responded promptly each time to get back up by 10 or more points.
The Gyrenes hit triple figures on the last basket from Klekas as he drove in the paint and got a layup to fall. The senior was also fouled on his way to the basket and knocked down the and-one shot to give Ave Maria their final score of 101.
"I liked the way played offensively for sure," said head coach Jamon Copeland after the game. "[Coastal Georgia] has got some really good guards…but one of the things that they don't have is great positional length. They got really good forwards, but they typically play four guards at a time, so we wanted to really try to expose that on the glass and our guys did a good job at doing that."
Klekas led the team with a career-high 36 points, passing his previous best of 31 set most recently against Webber on January 24. Klekas now has 1,618 career points as a Gyrene and is just 47 points away from tying Kiel Lewis (2009-13) for the most points as a Gyrene. Lewis was inducted into the Ave Maria Athletics Hall of Fame in 2022.
Four more Gyrenes hit double figures with Jonathan Effertz scoring 14, Watkins scoring 13 and Alex Sherwood and Bennett each scoring 11.
Effertz knocked down four threes to become the all-time three-point shooter in Ave Maria history, now with 273 career trifectas. The senior had tied Lucas Uzdavinis a week earlier in the game against New College.
Watkins was the only player to record a double-double by leading the team with 10 rebounds.
With the win, Ave Maria improves to 21-2 overall and 10-1 in conference play. The remain in first place in the Sun Conference standings with a cushion of at least one game ahead of every other team.
The Gyrenes are on the road for their next game as they travel up to Lake Wales to take on the Warner Royals. Ave Maria beat Warner 92-81 in their first home game in January and look to sweep the season series. Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. and the game will be streamed live on the Urban Edge Network.
