Air Force Splits Their Two Game East Coast Roadtrip Losing At Delaware

By: Ethan Hennessy

Newark Delaware

Air Force out of the Mountain West made a rare trip to the east coast. What made the trip even more noteworthy was that the Falcons did not come east to play either of their service academy rivals Navy or Army. Air Force won a 82-67 matinee at LIU on Friday before coming to Newark Delaware for a Sunday afternoon clash at the Bob Carpenter Center.

Both teams wanted to play up tempo from the beginning of the game. Air Force was shooting a heavy volume of three pointers only connecting on two of their first ten long range shots. On the other hand Delaware focused on getting the ball in the paint and getting shots at the rim from cuts. Delaware led 29-19 at halftime.

Ethan Taylor the main playmaker for Air Force started to heat up in the second half. After only scoring eight points in the first half on 3-10 shooting he contributed 18 points in the second half. Martin Ingelsby said “at halftime I told the guys there is such an emphasis to slow down Taylor, but maybe you can let him get his, and you can limit everybody else. For the most part I felt like we did a good job.” This recipe proved successful for the Blue Hens. Taylor continued to score, but other Falcons struggled to make offensive contributions. The Falcons finally tied it up at the 12:33 after making six straight shots the last of which was a Beau Becker layup. After both teams took turns taking the lead midway through the second half a scoring drought of over four minutes from 4:40 to 19.2 allowed Delaware to jump ahead. The Blue Hens never looked back sealing a 65-57 win. Air Force head coach Joe Scott said after the game “they won that last six minutes and that was the game”.

Scott mentioned the lack of experience from his roster, and how that contributes to the lack of offensive production from players other than Ethan Taylor. When I asked him if the two game east coast road trip brought his team together and allowed them to gain more experience he said “no doubt… you come out here spend five days and have some fun and get better”.

Up next for Delaware they head down to Dover for the Route One Rivalry against Delaware State. For Air Force the Falcons return to Colorado Springs to face Lindenwood.