Brite has career night for UMO men

By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on February 1, 2014 11:13 PM

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MOUNT OLIVE -- The University of Mount Olive men believe they belong among the upper echelon of Conference Carolinas.

They proved it Saturday evening.

Dontrell Brite poured in a career-high 26 points as Mount Olive handed North Greenville a 91-69 loss at Kornegay Arena. Each team entered the game with a 5-3 conference record.

James Kenan alum Mike Moore matched a career-high with 19 points and John Wieland added 13 points. Kendall Hargrove set a career high with 12 rebounds and matched a career high with four blocked shots.

UMO's bench outscored North Greenville, 42-8.

"I thought it was a collective effort," Mount Olive head coach Joey Higginbotham said. "We had guys that did everything. I think we have seven, eight or nine guys that could start. We've got a lot of weapons offensively, but our defense has always got to travel."

The Trojans needed fewer than two minutes to race out a 9-0 lead and get a capacity crowd to its feet.

Mount Olive (12-7 overall) aggressively attacked the Crusaders from beyond the arc and in the paint throughout the first half. The Trojans shot 6 for 11 from 3-point range and scored 22 points during the first 20 minutes.

After North Greenvillecut the deficit to 38-31, Hargrove ignited the crowd with emphatic dunks on offensive putbacks on consecutive Mount Olive possessions.

Brite shot 6 for 8 from the field in the first half and scored 15 points and the Trojans led 46-36 at the half.

"Our coaches talked about coming out with a lot of energy," Brite said. "My teammates tell me to just keep attacking because it opens up everything for them if the defense collapses. I knocked down some shots early so I kept shooting. We believe we belong at the top of the conference and we're trying to play that way."

The Crusaders continued to hang around in the second half and closed to within 53-46 on Patrick George's 3-pointer. Moore scored 14 of his 19 points in the second half to help Mount Olive pull away and also finished with six rebounds.

The Trojans ended the game with a 42-40 edge on the glass despite North Greenville's Phillip Brown grabbing 19 rebounds to go with 14 points.

"Phillip Brown is as good a post player as we've seen all year long," Higginbotham said. "He had a great game against us the first time. We just wanted to make everything tough for him and try to keep him off the glass."

Mount Olive travels to Pfeiffer on Wednesday.