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Drexel pours it on against Niagara

In just about every aspect of the game, Drexel had its way with Niagara Tuesday night in a nonleague game at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

In just about every aspect of the game, Drexel had its way with Niagara Tuesday night in a nonleague game at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

The Purple Eagles, who compete in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, started out poorly and never recovered on their way to a one-sided, 84-39 loss to the Dragons of the Colonial Athletic Association.

The Dragons, who had won six straight games before taking a 93-65 shellacking at Syracuse a week ago in their most recent outing, played their first home game in more than two weeks. Drexel is 4-0 at home and 9-2 overall.

Drexel big men Daryl McCoy and Samme Givens got the rout started and combined to sink eight of 11 shots as the Dragons built a 29-point halftime lead.

The visitors were in a 62-28 hole with just over 12 minutes remaining, and it was 74-35 with a little over six minutes to go.

Reserve guard Chris Fouch led Drexel with 19 points. McCoy finished with 17 points and nine rebounds, Givens had 14 points, and guard Gerald Colds scored 12.

Niagara had won the last three meetings between the teams, including a 76-69 victory last season.

Kashief Edwards, a 6-6 junior forward from Imhotep Charter, started for Niagara and finished with eight points. Neumann-Goretti grad Scooter Gillette, a 6-8 sophomore forward, came off the bench to score five points.

Guiding the Purple Eagles was coach Joe Mihalich, who played at La Salle (Class of '78) and later was an assistant for the Explorers. Among Mihalich's assistants is former St. Joseph's player Phil Martelli Jr., the son of the Hawks' coach.

Mihalich, who is in his 13th season with the Purple Eagles, saw his team lose its third in a row to fall to 3-10.

Niagara came out in a zone defense to test the outside shooting of a Drexel squad that was making 44.3 percent of its shots. The Dragons responded by getting the ball inside to Givens and McCoy, who combined to score their team's first 12 points.

Givens had eight of them, with each basket coming on a power move from under the hoop. Drexel didn't score from outside until freshman guard Frantz Massenat hit a three-pointer from the left wing with nearly eight minutes gone to give the Dragons a 15-3 advantage.

Niagara started out 1 for 18 from the floor, and was down by 25-3 with less than seven minutes remaining in the first half.

Fouch, Drexel's top reserve and also its leading scorer with 19.1 points per game before last night, came off the bench to score a game-high 13 points during the first 20 minutes. The Dragons were ahead 44-15 at halftime.