BALTIMORE – Playing against Johns Hopkins in the annual Wall-O'Mahoney Game, the Haverford College men's basketball team fell to host Johns Hopkins by a 69-43 score on Saturday afternoon.
The Wall-O'Mahony Game is played annually in honor of Glen Wall and Matt O'Mahony. They are Johns Hopkins basketball alumni who died on September 11. Playing the 17th annual game this year, Johns Hopkins has played Haverford more than any other opponent in this contest.
Each team is awarded an MVP for the day following the Wall-O'Mahoney Game. For Haverford, Jesse Turkson received that designation with his nine point, nine rebound afternoon. Harry O'Neill was named JHU's team MVP as he scored 16 points off the bench and was one of three Blue Jays to finish in double figures.
Haverford went toe-to-toe with the Blue Jays in the early portion of Saturday's contest, but a 12-5 run opened a double digit JHU advantage midway through the opening half. The Blue Jays' lead grew to as many as 15 points during the opening period before the Fords closed the half on a 7-2 run and trailed just 35-25 entering the locker rooms.
Turkson cut the lead the single digits as he scored the first two points of the second half, but JHU answered with 10 straight of its own to seize back the momentum. A Turkson layup put a stop to that Johns Hopkins run for a brief time, but the Blue Jays snapped a three-plus minute scoring drought with seven straight points to claim a 54-32 lead with 8:20 to play. The 69-43 victory marked the Blue Jays' largest lead they held all afternoon.
Eight different players found the scoring column for the Fords on Saturday. Joe Scibelli (eight points) and Jonathan Lang (seven points) were not far off the pace off Turkson's team-high nine points.
After closing out a stretch of three games over a five day span, men's basketball will return home to the friendly confines of Gooding Arena for its next three contests. However, the opposition will be stiff as No. 9 Swarthmore (Wednesday at 8 p.m.) and No. 22 Franklin & Marshall (next Saturday at 3 p.m.) will visit the Fords in the upcoming week.