MOUNT OLIVE, North Carolina - The University of Mount Olive men's basketball team defeated the Flying Fleet of Erskine College 87-83 in Conference Carolinas action Saturday night. The coaching staff's from both teams wore suits and sneakers to help promote cancer research and awareness. UMO improves to 14-7 overall and 8-5 in conference, while Erskine falls to 5-12, 3-9.

INSIDE THE SCORE
The contest was close at the start with the Trojans of Mount Olive gaining the early lead and building a small margin that grew to as large as nine with under 15 minutes to play. Erskine trimmed the lead to four, however, UMO expanded the lead back out and pushed the deficit to 10 for the first time. The game in its' way of continual back-and-forth saw the Flying Fleet cut the lead down to four once more and end up tying the game at 31 on a 12-to-2 run with 2:44 left in the half. The half was tied three more times with the Trojans taking the 38-37 lead into halftime.

In the second half, Mount Olive held a small single-digit lead between 5-8 points for a majority of the half until EC knotted the game at 69 with six minutes left. UMO quickly regained the lead with five unanswered points and the lead remained with the Trojans again until Erskine's three-pointer with 2:21 put them ahead 78-77. After a called timeout by the Fleet UMO regained the lead on a Michael Brown layup and that bucket sparked another run by the Trojans. The eight-point run that ran until there were just 23 seconds left in the game sealed the win for Mount Olive as they took the final 87-83.

MOUNT OLIVE LEADERS
The Trojans were led by Johnny Hughes III with 22 points. Alan Treakle and Darius Spragley both had double-digit scoring performances with 19 and 15 points respectively.

ERSKINE LEADERS
The Flying Fleet was led by Malcolm Green with a team-high 24 points. 

KEY MOMENT
The key moment of the game came in the closing seconds of the game when UMO used an 8-0 run to help seal the win.

UP NEXT
Mount Olive will hit the road to take on Emmanuel College on February 1 at 4 p.m. in Franklin Springs, Ga.