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Samford sends Georgia Southern to another SoCon loss
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BIRMINGHAM, ALA. — Georgia Southern Men’s Basketball fell to 0-2 in league play on Saturday afternoon with a 57-48 loss at Samford. Eric Ferguson led all scorers with 23 points as the junior produced his biggest night of the season in the loss. GSU hosts Brewton-Parker next Saturday night at Hanner Fieldhouse.

"We struggled shooting the ball today," said Head Coach Charlton "C.Y." Young. "We are in a funk right now and a lot of it has carried over from the Elon game on Wednesday. We’ve got to work on figuring out how to score with this team. When you hold a team to 57 points, you should win the game, but that wasn’t the case today."

Ferguson opened the contest with seven of the Eagles first nine points on the night en route to 12 first half points. The Eagles led by 10 points with 4:49 left in the opening period, but a 12-2 Samford run down the stretch tied the contest at halftime.

"Eric played really well today and showed some of his leadership skills," said Young. "Good things are going to happen for us if he continues to play well and lead our program."

The Eagles shot 57.9% from the field in the first half as Georgia Southern made 11-of-19 from the field in the first half. GSU was 3-for-7 from downtown in the first 20 minutes, scoring 26 points. Samford was 10-for-21 from the field with a 2-of-7 mark in the first half.

Jessie Pernell ranked second in scoring for the Eagles with eight points off the bench, draining a pair from beyond the arc. C.J. Reed scored seven with five assists.

Samford was led by 18 points from Tim Williams and twin 11-point performances by Clide Geffard, Jr. and Jaijon Kelly. Williams also recorded nine rebounds in the game.

The Eagles went up by four points on a pair of occasions before Samford took the lead for good at the 13:14 mark in the second half. The Bulldogs ran the lead out to 11 points at the 1:15 mark in the second half and was able to hold on in the final minute for the nine-point decision.

Georgia Southern cooled in the second half shooting, making 9-of-24 from the field (.375) down the stretch while the Bulldogs shot .571 down the stretch from the field. Ferguson also added eight rebounds and three steals as the Eagles fall to 2-5 on the year and 0-2 in the league. Samford is 2-7 overall with a 1-0 SoCon mark.