HANOVER, N.H. -- Some nights, it's just your night. And tonight belonged to Tyler Nelson.
The sophomore guard made 10 of his 14 shots from the floor and seven of nine field goal attempts in the second half as the Fairfield University men's basketball team improved to 2-0 with a 79-62 victory over Dartmouth College. Nelson finished the game with a game-high 28 points and was one of four double-digit scorers for the Stags.
Fairfield pretty much controlled the tempo of this game from beginning to end, although the Big Green stayed closed for the first few minutes of the first half. After the Stags jumped out to a 9-3 lead, Dartmouth rallied for six straight points on back-to-back three pointer from Guilien Smith which tied the score at 9-9.
The Stags went on a 13-4 run to grab a nine-point lead after Jerry Johnson Jr. made a jumper that brought the score to 22-13 with 11:52 remaining. The home team struggled to stay close for the rest of the half, coming as close as seven points on a few occasions before the Stags settled for an eight-point lead at halftime, 41-33.
Nelson set the tone for the second half by netting consecutive three pointers to push the lead to its largest margin at 47-33 just 80 seconds into the period. Nelson and Cobb were the only Stags to score points in the first 10 minutes of the second half with Nelson holding a slight 12-8 edge over his teammate during that stretch.
"I was proud of the guys in the second half," Head Coach Sydney Johnson said. "It took us a little time to figure out Dartmouth was trying to do. We became more attentive to that which enabled us to get some stops which triggered us in transition."
The duo enabled Fairfield to take complete command at 62-46 before Matija Milin joined the scoring column with a layup at the 9:59 mark. The lead reached as many as 23 points at 75-52 with six minutes remaining before Fairfield settled on its 17 point win.
Cobb ended the game with 15 points while Milin and Jerome Segura each posted 10 points for the Stags. Evan Boudreaux led all Dartmouth scorers with 18 points.
