Nov. 29, 2001

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MACON, Ga. - Phillip Ramelli tallied a career-high 16 points, seven rebounds and five blocked shots to lead three Bulldogs in double figures as Samford defeated Mercer 69-60 in NCAA Division I-A basketball Thursday.

Samford, a 66 percent shooting team from the free throw line, scored its last 18 points from the charity stripe and fired 72 percent from the line in the second half. Ramelli finished the game 8-of-10 from the line.

Senior guard Chris Weaver scored 20 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field, most coming on back-door cuts and layups. Fellow senior Corey Green added 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting.

Samford shot 46 percent from the field to Mercer's 42 percent, and the Bears outrebounded Samford 40-26. Scott Emerson led four Bears in scoring with 13 points and Justin Howard recorded a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

"We made plays tonight and got some good efforts from a number of players," said Samford Head Coach Jimmy Tillette. "We got a bad break when Sebastian Sachse injured his ankle after he scored six points in three minutes, but Jon Mills came in and gave a very solid effort in 37 minutes of play. We were very aggressive and successful in attacking their defense, especially in the middle with Sebastian and Phillip.

"I thought early we tried to force a few passes on the back cuts but overall our ball handling was good. We have to learn to finish games better, but you have to play through that to see it sometimes. We didn't finish the game with Georgia well and that's something that we looked back on and we'll see it to improve."

Samford jumped out to a 17-4 lead in the first eight minutes of the game, but Mercer responded with a 16-6 run of its own and cut Samford's lead to 23-20 on a three-pointer by Aleem Muhammad. Justin Howard made a jumper in the paint to tie the game at 25 and Weaver and Ramelli knocked down jumpers to give Samford a 29-28 halftime lead.

Green sparked the Bulldog offense in the second half, scoring nine points in the first eight minutes of the second half to help extend Samford's lead to 10, 44-34. The Bulldogs led by as many as 12 points and Mercer could only get as close as 59-54 before the Bulldogs hit 18 straight points at the free throw line.

Cornell Felton scored nine points and grabbed four rebounds and joined Weaver as assist leader with four each.

Samford heads to Troy State on Saturday to face the Trojans at 7 p.m.