Guilford won the tipoff against Randolph-Macon, but after that it went downhill for the Quakers.

  Randolph-Macon put up a stiff post defense, pushing Guilford’s shooters to the brink of despondency as the Yellow Jackets trounced the Quakers 74-45 Sunday in Crenshaw Gymnasium.

  The win preserved Randolph-Macon’s second-place standing in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference standings and knocked Guilford (14-6, 8-3 ODAC) into a third-place tie with Hampden Sydney. The Yellow Jackets (17-3, 10-2) are a step behind Virginia Wesleyan (16-2, 8-1), which played Washington & Lee Monday night.

  Guilford’s offense was frigid at the start of the game, going 10 minutes without a score. By the time the Quakers finally got a point on a free throw by Josh Pittman with 9:59 remaining in the first half, Randolph-Macon has scored 18 unanswered points.

  “Not one of our better outings, but you have to give Randolph-Macon a lot of the credit for that,” said Guilford coach Tom Palombo. “They’re playing at a really high level right now and they came out and they just stuck it to us the first 11 minutes. … They took us out of everything we were trying to do, everything we wanted to do offensively.”

  Even when evenly matched size-wise, Guilford struggled against the Yellow Jackets’ big men on the post: centers Dylan Cole and Hunter Fromang and forwards Lamar Giggetts and Akeem Holmes blocked seven shots – two apiece by Cole, Giggetts and Holmes.

  Randolph-Macon frustrated the Quakers so effectively on offense that they shot 30 percent from the floor. They were equally ineffective at the foul line. Will Cloyd, who came off the bench late and saw only four minutes of play, converted 3-of-4 free throws to boost Guilford’s percentage to 36 percent.

  Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets converted 51 percent of their field goals and all of their free throws.

  Randolph-Macon’s starting center Dylan Cole said they knew they had to step up their post play.

  “We knew they had a good post presence,” Cole said. “We’ve been working really hard on our post defense.”

  Holmes said they had to improve over their performance in their previous outing.

  “It came to a point where we had to focus,” Holmes said. “Last game, we didn’t do so well on our post defense. We knew we had to lock it up this time. We couldn’t let anything in or let them get anything too easy. …”

  Their post play had a huge effect on the boards. While Randolph-Macon managed only 42 rebounds to Guilford’s 36, they hammered the Quakers in the defensive rebound department 32-20.

  “They did a great job on our post players,” Palombo said. “They were trapping our post guys. We did a poor job of passing it out of the trap. We turned it over a bunch.”

  Cole said it was important to get a big lead quick.

  “It was very important to get that big lead early,” Cole said. “They’re a good team, and if we didn’t jump on them, they’d have hung around all game.”

  As it was, the Quakers spent more time trying to hang on rather than hang around. Once Pittman put them on the board, a 3-point shot by Gabriel Lowder brought them within 13 points of Randolph-Macon.

  The Yellow Jackets were nonplussed and expanded their lead, only to see Guilford get back within 13 points on a jump shot by Pittman with 5:30 remaining in the half. That was as close as the Quakers could get.

  “It didn’t get much better in the second half,” Palombo said. “We shot 33 percent in the second half and only made nine baskets. They made as many baskets in the first half as we did almost in the entire game.

  “We weren’t very good from the field, we weren’t very good from the 3-point line, and we were 8-for-22 from the free-throw line. We were bad in just about every facet of the game that you can list.”

  The Yellow Jackets were led by Adam Desgain with 20 points, Calvin Croskey with 14, and Giggetts with 11. Pittman was Guilford’s only double-figure scorer with 12 points.

GUILFORD (14-6, 8-3 ODAC) — Stafford 0, Lowder 8, Sullivan 6, Pittman 12, Monroe 0, Turpin 2, Hinton 0, McCarthy 2, Efird 4,Tracy 0, Koppenhaver 0, Hopkins 4, Cloyd 3, Gibbs 0, Freeman4, Robbins 0. Totals — 17 8-22 45.
RANDOLPH-MACON (17-3, 10-2) — Desgain 20, Giggetts 11, Cole 6, Badger 0, Croskey 14, Robinson 5, King 0, Sullivan 0, Walker 4, Simon 6, Jackson 0, Hamilton 0, Fromang 0, Holmes 8. Totals — 30 5-5 74.
Haltime — Randolph-Macon 42, Guilford 21.
3-point goals — GC: Lowder 2, Pittman. RMC: Desgain 4, Croskey 4, Robinson.