MELBOURNE, Fla. (January 28, 2023) - The Rollins Tars were able to exact their revenge after a New Year's Day loss at the hands of the Florida Panthers with an impressive 81-60 road win at Melbourne on Saturday. The win brings the Tars' record to .500 on the year at 10-10, including a 6-6 record against SSC opponents.
The Tars came out hot with four straight points from big man
Matheus Silveira. In fact, Silveira scored the first eight points of the game for Rollins, giving them an 8-7 edge heading into the first media timeout. After Tech retook the lead, three straight makes from
Sergey Grishaev,
Hutton Yenor, and
Kyle Marion had Rollins up five. Moments later, with the Panthers still hanging around,
Cade Long converted an and-one off a steal, giving the Tars the momentum. This time it was Yenor going for five straight points to increase the Tars' lead. For the final five minutes of the half, Rollins was able to counter each Panther attack with a bucket, maintaining a six-point advantage for most of the half. Long put an exclamation on the first twenty minutes with a buzzer-beater three to send the Tars to the locker room with a 43-36 lead.
Rollins shot an impressive 64% from the field in the first half, including 43% from three-point range.
Tech cut the lead down to four early in the second half, but the short-handed Panthers started to lose steam. Rollins was able to break off a 12-0 run over the course of four minutes to blow the game open. Yenor either scored or assisted on ten of the twelve points. Grishaev was the next man up for the Tars, scoring six points across Rollins' next five possessions, making the score 64-47. The Panthers weren't able to string together any sort of run in the final minutes, and Klusman's boys were able to hang on for the impressive road win, 81-60.
Yenor was close to a triple-double in this one, finishing with 17 points, 9 rebounds, and a career-high 12 assists. Silveira and Grishaev each added 15, while Long chipped in ten. Sean Houpt, who burned the Tars for 23 points in their first matchup, was limited to twelve in this one on 3-13 from the field.
Next up for Rollins is a home matchup with the Tampa Spartans. The two teams will tipoff on Wednesday, February 1 around 7:30 pm at Warden Arena in Winter Park.
