Titan Men Close Strong to Beat Broward

Eastern Florida's men's basketball team closed the second half with a 36-11 run to defeat Broward College 83-61 on Tuesday.

The victory at the Titan Field House on the Melbourne Campus improved FCSAA Southern Conference champion Eastern Florida to 12-0 in the conference and 24-3 overall.

Broward fell to 6-6 and 15-11 but had its way in the first half. The Seahawks built leads of 23-13 and 34-26 behind 13 points inside from Joe Lopez before the Titans closed with an 8-0 run for a 34-34 halftime tie.

Things went back and forth for the first seven minutes of the second half with Broward leading 50-47 with 13 minutes and 23 seconds to play.

The tide then turned.

Freshman Kareem Brewton scored two of his 17 points to bring the Titans to within 50-49. Sophomore B.J. Gladden then powered his way to the basket for a layup, was fouled and his three-point play made it 52-50.

Broward tied it at 52-52 with 10:50 to go but that was the Seahawks' last gasp.

Gladden, who was a power inside, finished with 22 points while freshman C.J. Jackson, the NJCAA Region 8 Player of the Week for the second straight week, finished with 24 points including two second-half three-pointers.

"Tonight was big, we just won the conference championship against Palm Beach last Saturday and we wanted to come back and win another game to keep it going," Gladden said.

"I think we played a little sloppy early. Coach got into us a little bit at halftime. We came out and picked it up and that's what we needed to do.

"Being a sophomore I had to be a leader and step up and get my team going and that's what I did."

The victory also protected Eastern Florida's No. 1 FCSAA/Region 8 ranking and its No. 7 NJCAA national ranking.

"Our game today was a little sluggish," Jackson said. "We probably had some miscues we normally wouldn't have but we dug deep like we have all year and just stuck with and continued to play hard and ended up winning.

"The second half we bounced back and finally got it together."

The Titans play two of their final three games at home, hosting ASA Miami at 4 p.m. Saturday and Indian River State at 7 p.m. Feb. 16 in a game to be telecast on WEFS-TV and streamed at www.efsctitans.com/webcast.

They close the regular season at Miami Dade College on Feb. 18 before traveling to Ocala for the NJCAA Region 8/FCSAA Tournament March 2-5.