The Cleveland Charge defeated the Delaware Blue Coats by a score of 122-110. Just like the previous game, the Blue Coats’ Judah Mintz and Charge’s Darius Brown were the two main offensive players of the game. 

Delaware came into this game shorthanded with Jeff Dowtin Jr., Justin Edwards, and Pete Nance all playing with the Sixers. Along with Marcus Bagley and Isaiah Mobley being hurt, the Coats only had eight active players. 

After not being pleased with the team’s effort last game, head coach Mike Longabardi got his team to start off with a 25-9 lead in the first six minutes of play in the game. Rob Woodard II and Jaylen Martin both had eight points.

“We came out with fire,” Mintz said. “We played very competitively which I think you saw early in the first quarter. We have to be able to maintain that lead and not take our foot off the gas.”

The second quarter was more of the same for Delaware, with the team being able to maintain the lead.

Then things fell apart in the third quarter defensively though, as the Charge put up 42 points in the frame alone. After leading by 15 points going into the second quarter, the Coats now trailed by five points. 

“We wanted to keep building and get better,” Longabardi said. “We led by 15 and did not have a great third quarter.”

A big part of that big offensive explosion was Brown who scored 18 points in the quarter. He did it from everywhere, behind the arc, from the midrange, the free throw line, and in the paint.

“We let Brown get hot and we failed to score on our own end,” Mintz said. “When another team gets their confidence going it is hard to stop them. When you are not getting points yourself things will go wrong for you.”

Mintz did his best in the fourth quarter, scoring 12 of his team’s 20 points in the fourth quarter, but with both Brown and Elijah Hughes hitting shots for Cleveland, it was not good enough for the Coats to win the game.

“I was getting to my spots,” Mintz said. “I missed a couple of easy ones that I should have made. But all in all, it was not a terrible game, I just wish we could have gotten the win.”

Aside from the third quarter, the team did get contributions with six of the eight players on the team scoring double figures. Martin was the team’s second-leading scorer with 22 points which was one of his highest totals of the season. 

“We want to play basketball the right way,” Longabardi said. “Who is over is open gets the ball, we have to make the right decision.”

The Blue Coats will be playing the second half of their back-to-back tomorrow against the Greensboro Swarm. They will hope that their six-game losing streak will come to an end.  

“We just have to put it together for 48 minutes, that is the bottom line,” Longabardi said.

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