Robert Morris Beats Wright St. to Advance to Horizon League Semifinals

MOON TWP, Pa. — Robert Morris earned the top seed in the Horizon League Tournament after winning the regular season title. That gave them a home quarterfinal matchup against Wright St. with the winner moving onto the semifinal round in Indianapolis.

In Thursday’s quarterfinal round, the Colonials started slow and found themselves down by 10 to the Raiders in the first half before they flipped the script and finished the half on a 33-13 run thus giving them a 10-point advantage at the break.

Then, in the second half, each time that the Raiders tried to make a run to get back into the game, the Colonials had an answer as they kept the Raiders at arms length for the remainder of the game before clinching the 83-62 win.

The Colonials’ system usually runs through the star front-court duo of Horizon League Player of the Year winner Alvaro Folgueiras and Defensive Player of the Year winner Amarion Dickerson but that was not entirely the case in Thursday’s win.While Folgueiras did post his 13th double-double of the year, Dickerson was in foul trouble all night which limited his output.

Luckily, the Colonials found a majority of their offensive success through the play of their guards. Kam Woods, D.J. Smith, Josh Omojafo and Ryan Prather Jr. combined for 59 points in the win. In comparison, the Raiders scored 62 points as a team in the loss.

Robert Morris jumped out to a quick 4-2 lead behind buckets from Woods and Dickerson before Wright St. hit the gas pedal and went on an 8-0 run. The Raiders run eventually gave them a 10-point lead when a Brandon Noel layup made the score 18-8 which prompted a timeout from Colonials’ head coach Andy Toole.

Following the timeout, the Colonials looked as if they had a different energy behind them as they answered with an 11-0 run themselves and re-claimed the lead at 19-18. During the Colonials’ run, the Raiders went over four minutes without scoring a single point.

The run started with back-to-back threes from Smith and ended with a corner three from Folgueiras. The run made the Raiders call a timeout but it did not help them much as the Colonials went on another huge run with that one being a 13-0 run before the halftime intermission.

Not only did the Colonials offense pick their slack up after a rough first eight minutes, their defense played lockdown after the Raiders’ initial punch as Wright St. started 0-of-10 from three-point range before Alex Huibregtse made the team’s first triple just before the buzzer to cut their deficit to 10 at the intermission.

The Colonials entered the locker rooms up by double-digits despite being down 18-8 at one point. Over the rest of the half, the Colonials outscored the Raiders 33-13.

Robert Morris came out of the intermission right where it left off as they outscored Wright St. 10-5 through the first four minutes of the half which helped push the lead out to 15 points.

The Raiders started to crawl back into the game following the under-16 timeout as Michael Imariagbe went on a personal 7-0 run which cut the Colonials lead back down to 10 with the score 53-43. Prather stopped the Raiders run with a three but Wright St. got back-to-back midrange buckets from Huibregtse and Noel to pull them back to a single-digit deficit at the second media stoppage of the half.

The Colonials managed to push their lead back out to 14 points following another Prather three but the Raiders made another push as they scored the game’s next 7 points to make the score 64-57 at the under-eight timeout.

Then, just like in the first half, the words from the Colonials’ head coach changed something about the approach that they were playing with as they answered with a 11-0 run which was capped off with a slam from Folgueiras that sent the full crowd into a frenzy and forced a Raiders timeout.

The run made the score 75-57 in favor of the Colonials and with under five minutes to go, the Colonials lead was too much for the Raiders to overcome as Robert Morris chewed the clock before they eventually closed out the 21-point victory.

With the win over the Raiders on Thursday, the Colonials now head to Indianapolis to play in the league’s semifinal round against Oakland. The Colonials swept the Golden Grizzlies in the regular season.