Chris Long won the battle. His Elon Phoenix won the war.
In a battle of all-conference guards, Long outdueled The Citadel’s Cameron Wells and the Phoenix advanced in the Southern Conference tournament with a 85-74 victory over the Bulldogs in the Friday nightcap at McKenzie Arena.
Elon (14-16) will face the College of Charleston in tonight’s final game, set for 9:30.
The Phoenix hit 11 3-pointers, and four of them scored in double figures. Long had 21 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds, while Jack Isenbarger had 16 points, Drew Spradlin 15 and Ryley Beaumont 15 for Elon.
“You have to do the little things to be successful,” Long said. “I thought we did that tonight. We won the rebounding war and made some key plays that helped us get the win tonight.”
Wells had 19 points, six rebounds and five assists for the Bulldogs (10-22). Austin Dahn led them with 20 points.
Elon led by as much as 16 in the second half, as the Bulldogs extended their pressure in an attempt to come back and the Phoenix made them pay with a flurry of 3s. A 3 by Beaumont made it 71-55, but the Bulldogs mounted a slight comeback, cutting the score to 75-67 on a 3 by Zach Urbanus with 3:24 to play.
The Phoenix put the game away with 8-for-12 free-throw shooting and a putback by Lucas Troutman in the final moments.