Box Score CAMDEN, N.J. – With one of its best all-around games of the season, the Rutgers University-Camden men's basketball gave powerful Richard Stockton College all it could handle into the second half of a New Jersey Athletic Conference game here Wednesday night.
The Ospreys, however, are nationally ranked for a reason, and Stockton shook off the Scarlet Raptors' best punches and went on to defeat Rutgers-Camden, 82-66, led by senior guard
Josh Blamon (Cinnaminson, NJ/Cinnaminson), who scored a game-high 21 points to raise his career total to 1,012 points. He became the 29th player to join the 1,000-point club in Stockton program history.
Richard Stockton, ranked No. 7 nationally in the
D3hoops.com Top 25 poll released this week, improves to 9-0 overall and is all alone atop the NJAC standings with a 4-0 record.
Rutgers-Camden falls to 4-3 overall and 2-3 in the NJAC. The Scarlet Raptors have lost their last 13 games and 59 of the last 60 against the Ospreys, who lead the all-time series, 67-8.
Stockton looked every bit the part of a nationally-ranked team early in the game. After Rutgers-Camden scored the first points of the contest on a trey by senior guard
Wyatt Polk (Haddonfield, NJ/Haddonfield Memorial), the Ospreys ran off the next 11 points. They led by as many as 12 points (17-5) in the first half before the Scarlet Raptors mounted a comeback of its own. The Raptors went on a 16-6 run and closed out the first half with a layup by junior guard/forward
John Tatem (Camden, NJ/Pennsauken Tech), slicing Stockton's lead to 36-35 at the break.
The score was 38-37 Stockton early in the second half when the Ospreys went on a 14-4 run to open up a 52-41 advantage. Junior guard
Armin Cane (Pleasantville, NJ/Pleasantville) scored six Stockton points in the run. The closest the Raptors came after that was 52-45 on a layup by junior guard
Julian Martin (Williamstown, NJ/Williamstown) with 12:53 remaining.
Blamon went 9-for-10 from the foul line on the way to his big night. He added a game-high 11 rebounds – 10 off the defensive boards – for a double-double. Cane scored 18 points and senior forward
Anthony Woodard (Atlantic City, NJ/Atlantic City) contributed 13 for the Ospreys, who shot 28-for-48 (58.3 percent) from the floor. Stockton also held a 44-25 advantage in rebounds, but the Ospreys made six more turnovers (24-18) than the Scarlet Raptors.
Rutgers-Camden received 16 points from Polk, 15 from Martin, 14 from Tatem and 12 from senior guard
K.J. Brown (Sicklerville, NJ/Living Faith Christian Academy). Polk and Martin, both in their first year with the Scarlet Raptors, contributed six steals apiece to set their Rutgers-Camden career highs.
The Raptors shot 23-for-63 (36.5 percent) from the floor.
Stockton plays another NJAC game Saturday with an 8 p.m. tip-off at Rutgers-Newark.
Rutgers-Camden is idle for the holiday break and won't play again until Dec. 29, when it faces Susquehanna University at 8 p.m. in the first game of the Louis Fleming Basinger Memorial Tournament at Lycoming College. The Scarlet Raptors will play either Lycoming or Penn State-Brandywine the next day at either 1 p.m. or 3 p.m. The Scarlet Raptors' next home game will be Saturday, January 3, 2015 with a 1 p.m. non-conference contest against Neumann University.
