CONWAY, S.C. — Senior guard Everage Richardson scored a career-high 27 pointsto lead the Coastal Carolina’s men’s basketball team to a 90-86 victory overUNC Wilmington, Dec. 19. Freshman forward Anthony Breeze chipped in with acareer-high 24 points. With the win the Chanticleers improve to 5-5, while theSeahawks fall to 7-4 with the two teams splitting the season series.The two squads exchanged six leads and had six ties in the first half, with the Chanticleers leading a majority of the half with their largest lead of eight at 24-16 with 8:31 to go in the half on a layup by Richardson. However, thevisiting Seahawks chipped away at the lead and got it back to even at theintermission on T.J. Carter’s jumper with 27 seconds to play to make it 39-39 at the halftime break.

Both teams shot the ball well in the first half, hitting over 50 percent of their shots from the floor, with CCU knocking down 18-of-33(54.5 percent) and UNCW downing 50.0 percent (14-of-28).The second half remained close as Coastal’s six-point 78-72 advantage was thelargest of the second half. Breeze made his lay-up, drew the foul on UNCWilmington’s Montez Downey and then sank his foul shot in order to give theChants a six-point lead with 4:41 to go.

However, the Seahawks drilled back-to-back three-pointers from Downey and Daniel Fountain to tie the game at84-84 with 1:06 remaining in the game. Senior guard Jack Leasure broke the tiewith a lay-up and two made free throws by redshirt sophomore Logan Johnsonallowed the Chants to take a crucial 88-84 lead with 14 seconds left.

Coastal sealed the victory with a pair of free throws by Richardson All nine Coastal players that saw action scored as the Chants hit 56.5 percentof their shots (35-for-62) and outscored UNC Wilmington 56-26 in the paint. TheSeahawks were 31-of-60 (51.7 percent), including 10-of-26 from the three-pointarc. CCU forced 17 turnovers and scored 20 points off of those miscues, whileonly committing 10Richardson went 12-for-16 from the floor, including 3-for-5 from beyond the arc.

Breeze was 8-for-12 on the night and went 8-for-11 from the foul line. Richardson and Breeze also recorded eight and seven rebounds, respectively,with Richardson’s being a career-best. Meanwhile, sophomore guard Mario Sisinniand Johnson each dished out career best of five assists with Johnson adding 11points to tie his career high.Fountain paced UNCW with 22 points behind 7-of-13 shooting as four Seahawks reached double figures. Dominique Lacy grabbed a game-best nine rebounds to gowith his nine points.  - Courtesy Coastal Carolina/UNCW Sports Information