GREENSBORO, N.C. – Braylen Salters (Cleveland, Ohio) erupted for 28 points on a career-high six three-point makes as the Guilford College men's basketball team (7-7, 1-4 ODAC) blitzed Eastern Mennonite University (4-10, 1-4 ODAC), 89-68, to claim Head Coach Jesse DeLoof's first win over an Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) opponent on Wednesday night on Jack Jensen Court at the Ragan-Brown FieldHouse.

Guilford's press and pace were in high gear, forcing the Royals to commit a season-high 31 turnovers leading to a 20-point advantage in points off of them, 33-13. Percentages-wise, the adversaries were not far off, with the Quakers just out-shooting EMU overall, .425 to .400, while the guests were more-efficient from range, .368 to .344, albeit in a much smaller volume. Another notable is GC's season-low for fouls committed of 16, preventing the Royals from staying in the game at the charity stripe.

Salters got hot and stayed hot in this one, dumping in 28, tied for his second-highest scoring output of the season thus far, shooting the ball with precision, making six threes in 11 tries while also crushing his prior career-high with eight steals. EMU limited Gabe Proctor (Apex, N.C.) to season-lows of 10 points on nine shots, among his full games played, but his teammates picked him up. Rival Axselle (Mechanicsville, Va.) continued his strong work defensively, with two steals and two blocks while netting 13 points on 6-of-11 and grabbing a game-high eight rebounds. Reynolds Escher (Atlanta, Ga.) pitched in double-digits for the second-straight game with a dozen on top of six boards, three assists, and three steals while Dawson Edwards (Durham, N.C.) finished just-short of the double-digit club, with nine tallies along with a game-best five assists, matching his career-high.

Isaiah Carr led the Royals with 17 points followed by Aaron Brooks who added a team-leading four assists, two steals, and three blocks to go with his 13 points. Brooks was also even with Jazen Walker for the team-lead in rebounding, with seven as Walker also contributed 10 tallies, through EMU's trio of leading scorers combined for 14 turnovers on their own in the game.

The teams traded runs early, with EMU scoring first, GC netting the next eight then the Royals knocked down a trio of threes en route to 13 of the next 17 into the under-12 timeout, up 15-12. Salters connected on all-three freebees after getting fouled on a three-point try soon after the break, but nerves began settling in as Donovan Aranason made a layup then Carr connected on a three to make it a five-point EMU edge. GC got six-straight to grab the lead on a Proctor baseline cut, sparking a run of five-straight lead-changing scores in the ensuing two minutes, making the score 25-24 in favor of the Quakers at the under-eight. Guilford got a couple of twos, EMU made a pair of threes and once again took the lead before Salters hit a trey, putting the Quakers in front and they would never trail again. Arnason leveled the score with a couple of free throws after the under-four timeout, but Axselle and Escher twos followed by back-to-back threes by Salters suddenly thrust the hosts to a 42-32 halftime advantage.

Thanks to a couple of steals, Guilford netted six swift points in just 34 seconds out of the half, without EMU even mustering a shot in the stretch, as the Quakers' scored a season-best 16 unanswered around halftime, to turn it from a nail-biter to a rout in just three-and-a-half minutes of gametime. Eastern Mennonite narrowed the game to a dozen briefly, but back-to-back Salters threes lit a 13-4 stretch as the GC lead swelled beyond 20 and the game really never got competitive again. The advantage dipped back into the teens briefly just once through the finish, and Guilford polished their 17^th-straight victory over the Royals, 89-68.

The Quakers hit the road to battle Bridgewater next on Saturday, January 17^th at 2:00 PM up in Virginia.

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