HUNTSVILLE | The University of Alabama in Huntsville men's basketball team closed out the pre-Christmas slate with an 85-78 victory over Shorter downtown at the Von Braun Center in the Rocket City Classic on Tuesday night. The Chargers improve to 8-3 (2-2 Gulf South Conference) with the victory, while the Hawks slip to 1-11 (1-4 GSC).
 
Turning Point
-With Shorter leading 57-53 with 13:08 left in the game, the Chargers ripped off a 21-5 scoring run over the next 6:32 to turn the deficit into a 74-62 advantage with Justin Ward capping off the streak with a 3-pointer at the 6:58 mark of the second half.
 
Inside the Box Score
-Ward led the Chargers on the evening as the senior scored 25 including an 11-for-14 showing from the free throw line while also grabbing a team-best eight rebounds.
-Four other UAH players scored in double figures with Chayse Elliott and Malik Cook-Stroupe both adding 14 while Tanner Finley and Kip Owens scored 12.
-Finley filled up the stat sheet, also grabbing six rebounds, dishing out three assists, and collecting four steals.
-Seth Swalve registered a team-high six assists in the game.
-Amonte Potter paced Shoter with 22 points, while Josh Burnett scored 18 and grabbed 11 rebounds to notch a double-double.
-For the game, UAH shot 49.2 percent including a 12-for-24 performance from beyond the arc, while Shorter shot 39.2 percent and knocked down 14 3-pointers.
-The Chargers won the rebounding battle by a 40-39 margin.
 
Inside the Flow
-UAH jumped out to a quick six-point lead, going ahead 8-2 by the 17:21 mark of the opening half, but the Hawks outscored the Chargers 14-6 over the next 5:37 to go up 19-17 with 11:11 on the clock.
-The Chargers controlled play for much of the next seven minutes, getting nine points from Ward as part of a 17-9 run that saw UAH reclaim its six-point advantage at 34-28 with 4:22 left in the half, and though the Hawks would responded with an 8-0 spurt to briefly go back in front, it was UAH that would lead at the half by a 42-41 margin.
-UAH would push the lead out to four points on three occasions at the start of the second half before the Hawks went on a 9-1 run over just 87 seconds to go up by the previously mentioned 57-53 margin.
-The 21-5 run by UAH was keyed by nine points from Cook-Stroupe as the Chargers went 3-for-4 from 3-point land during the spurt.
-Shorter would narrow the gap to just four at 77-73 with 2:44 remaining in the game, but the Chargers went 6-for-8 from the charity stripe in the waning moments while holding the Hawks to just 1-of-6 from the floor to seal the contest.
 
Noteworthy
-The 25-point showing for Ward is his sixth performance of 20 points or more of the season and his first since he scored 20 against Clark Atlanta on Nov. 22.
-The four steals by Finley represents a career-best four the junior, and it is his second multi-steal game of the year.
-Elliott has scored in double figures now in four straight, and his scoring average is second-best on the team at 12.1 points per contest.
-The nine turnovers committed by UAH is the lowest of the season for the Chargers, and it is the lowest by the team since giving it away just nine times in the NCAA tournament against Clark Atlanta on March 11 of last season.
 
Next Time Out
-UAH will now be off for the Christmas break and will return to action on Saturday, Dec. 30, when Oakland City visits Huntsville with tip-off slated for 4 p.m. UAH was an 87-79 winner on Nov. 18 in the Hoosier State.