The Belmont Abbey men's basketball team shot 50 percent from the field and its defense limited Erskine to a 35 percent effort and forced 19 turnovers as the Crusaders snapped a three-game losing streak and earned their first conference win with an easy 80-53 win over the Flying Fleet this evening at the Wheeler Center. The Abbey moves to 5-6 overall and 1-3 in Conference Carolinas, while Erskine remains winless with a record of 0-8 overall and 0-4 in Conference Carolinas.

Abbey senior guard Richard Barbee led four Crusaders in double figures with 19 points on seven of 14 shooting from the floor, to go along with eight rebounds, five steals, three assists and zero turnovers in 32 minutes. Tyshawn Good added 15 points on seven of 12 shooting, while Kyle Phillips added 14 points and a team-high nine rebounds. Matthew Beerse added a career-high ten points on a perfect shooting night, sinking all three of his field goals, all from beyond-the-arc and draining his only free throw attempt. He also finished with five assists in just his third career start.

The Crusaders pieced together shooting percentages of 45.5 (15-33) in the first half and 54.8 (17-31) in the second to finish with an even 50 (32-64) for the game, and fashioned a 46.7 (7-15) percent effort from three-point range.

Erskine shot 35.8 (19-53) percent as Nick Riley led the Fleet with 16 points, while DeShaun Hill added ten. Chris Gore led all players with ten rebounds.

The Crusaders controlled the game from the start, as they never trailed and led by as many as 15 points. Up by nine with 7:14 left in the half, Erskine went on an 8-2 run over the next 2:12 to cut the lead to three at 24-21 with 5:02 left, but the Crusaders responded by scoring the next 12 unanswered points, as the run was started and ended by three-pointers from Barbee and Beerse, with layups from Ian Parry, Barbee and Good sandwiched in between. Riley stopped the bleeding with a three-pointer with 50 seconds left, but Barbee closed the half with a running layup to push the lead to 38-24 at the half.

The second half was all Crusaders, as they outscored Erskine 42-29 in the final 20 minutes. The Abbey outscored the Fleet 18-7 in the first eight minutes to move its lead to 24 points at 55-31. The advantage grew to as high as 28 points on a Phillips layup with 5:44 left, and the cushion never sank below 25 points after that as the Abbey earned its largest margin of victory for the season.