July 9, 2006
Taipei City, Taiwan – Irish sophomore Luke Zeller (Washington, Ind.) grabbed a team-high eight rebounds to lead Athletes in Action (representing the USA) to a 70-51 over Australia 70-51 in opening day of the 28th William Jones Cup held at the Taipei Physical Education College Gym in Taipei City.
Josh Carter of Texas A&M helped give AIA a quick 7-0 lead and had six of the teams first ten points. Australia worked through some early struggles to come back and tie the game at 16 at the end of the first period. Most of the comeback was from the charity stripe, as they hit 7 free throws during their run; Australia finished the night 15 for 26 from the line. AIA only attempted four foul shots.
The game remained close until the closing minutes of the first half when Troy DeVries sparked a run with a couple of his game-high 6 steals that ended the half with a seven point lead for the team from America. It took nearly 12 minutes before AIA gathered their first offensive rebound; but once the rebounds started coming, so did the points.
The second half continued much of the same type as the closing minutes of the first half as AIA outscored Australia 26-11 in the third period for a 59-37 advantage. Australia’s head coach Martin Clarke commented, “I thought we did a good job for fifteen minutes. Maybe tomorrow we can play well for 20 minutes. When we learn to play harder when we are down, we will be more successful.”
AIA coach Mike Jarvis added, “We came in expecting a good game from Australia. They are well coached and have good players. I agree that they will get better as the tournamnet continues.”
Josh Carter led AIA with 16 points and Troy DeVries added 13 points, six steals and six assists.
AIA continues the round robin portion of the tournament against Korea on Sunday at 3PM. Korea defeated Kazakhstan 93-58 in their opening round match-up.
Note: Peter Warden of Athletes In Action provided the game recap for www.und.com.