QUINCY, Ill. - Looking to right the ship after a defeat in the first contest of 2024 at Rockhurst earlier this week, the Hawks returned home to host the Bearcats of Southwest Baptist University for an afternoon GLVC showdown on Saturday (Jan. 6). A double-double from Zion Richardson paced QU in points and rebounds and helped lead Quincy to a 66-50 victory to move back to .500 in conference play at 3-3. 

The Hawks started off on a dominate stretch, scoring the first 10 points of the contest and not allowing the Bearcats on the scoreboard for over five and half minutes. 

The next four minutes belonged to SBU, as the squad put together an 11-point run of its own to regain the advantage. Not to be outdone, Quincy fired a salvo of its own right back, dropping in 10 more points without an answer to take a 20-11 lead into the eight minute media timeout. 

In the final eight minutes of the first half SBU never cut the QU edge to below eight points as the advantage stretched to as many as 18 before the buzzer sounded sending the Hawks to the locker in the drivers seat 38-20.

Southwest Baptist came out firing at the start of the second frame, nearly cutting the deficit in half by the first media timeout, trailing 41-30. The Bearcats drew within six points just under the 12 minute mark, but never came any closer. 

QU pushed the lead back to double digits with just under nine minutes to play and it stayed that way for the remainder of the contest as the Hawks came away with the 66-50 winner. 

The defensive presence for the Hawks was remarkable, holding their opponents to under 30% as a team in the first half and just 31.7% (19-60) for the game along with a strong showing of perimeter defense, holding SBU to just 17.9% (5-28) from behind the arc. 

Richardson led the team in scoring with 15 and rebounds with 10 in not only his second double-double of the season, but also the guards second in the last three games. Joining Richardson in double figures was Nate Shockey with 12 on 2-3 shooting and a 6-7 effort from the charity stripe, along with Isaiah Foster pouring in 11 with three three-pointers. 

Next up for the Hawks is a Thursday evening (Jan. 11) GLVC showdown with the Bulldogs of Truman State University. Tip-off is slated for 7:30 PM from Pepsi Arena.