Tiger’s Fight To Gold

Towson Tigers pounce on William and Mary to solidify their regular season championship in the CAA. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-y_lXI2R1k

 The Tribe and the Tigers arrived at the Secu Arena Thursday night to 4,750 fans in attendance, a new record for the complex at Towson University. W&M started their night strong, earning the first points of the game. They would extend their lead to about two shots for most of the first half, before eventually building up to a four score lead at halftime, 32-44. All hope for the Tigers was not lost. 

Towson would come out of halftime, ready to regain control of the game. But not before some pushback from the Tribe. It took some back and forth between the two, and three media timeouts, before the Tigers had their prey in sight.

“Game of runs, that’s basketball. Sometimes you're gonna miss, sometimes you’re not.” Tyler Tejada would comment on the game’s table turn. 

With 11 minutes left to go in the game, Williamson would throw a two pointer from the paint to bring the top seed team neck and neck with their rivals. Tyler Tejada would take the ball, score twice, before handing the ball off to Mekhi Lowery who would make two shots of his own. 

This Tiger domination would continue for almost another six minutes, keeping W&M's stuck at 55 points. It would take W&M’s Isaiah Moeng making a three point jump shot to bring the score up to 74-58. Towson would gain a bit more of a lead for three more shots until W&M would start going back and forth with them again. As the clock and the cheerleaders counted down to zero, W&M’s Ryan Jackson Jr would score the final point for his team, but it wouldn’t be enough. The packed stadium would burst with cheers and Towson’s fight song as the Tigers had won, 88-73. This win would mark Towson’s fourth consecutive season with 20 or more wins, a record for the program.

At the end of the game, the top scorers of Tyler Tejada (20 points), Dylan Williamson (20 points), and Tomiwa Sulaiman (15 points) as well as their coach, Pat Skerry were brought in for a post game interview.

“We started slow in the first half,” Dylan Williamson, a sophomore guard, reflected. “We’re in the locker room, the coach didn’t really get on us like that, kept it calm, tell us what we needed to do, we came out and executed.”

“It was a lot of fun,” Tyler would mention about the second half. “We’re just, doin’ what we do.”

With Towson’s current basketball team being quite similar to the near championship winning team from last season, Tomiwa Sulaiman was asked about sticking around from the season prior. “These guys are my brothers. I see the dogs that they have in them, I see the way they(‘re) fighting on court…It’s more than basketball.”

“It was a great day to be a Towson Tiger” Coach Skerry said on the night “I feel like Towson, we stood up tonight…I just have incredible, incredible pride in our university and our athletic department.” 

The CAA championship is quickly drawing to a close. Towson University is currently the top seed in its conference and is getting ready to head to Washington D.C for the championship.

 Tomiwa has a message for the fans, “Without the fans, the energy, the everything just isn't the same...keep showing support, you gotta show up, come to courts, we’ll go get these dubs. It means the world to us to have all this support, just keep showing us support all the way to the tournament.”