La Salle wins Battle of the Boardwalk, tops Towson 57-51

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Pookie Powell scored 18 points and La Salle capitalized on 19 turnovers to beat the Towson, 57-51 and win the Battle of the Boardwalk tournament on Saturday afternoon.

The game included an embarrassing first-half mistake when Towson freshman Solomon Uyaelunmo took an in-bounds pass, turned and scored on his own basket while his coach, Pat Skerry nearly keeled over in disbelief.

It took first-year La Salle coach Ashley Howard 11 games to get his first career win and now his Explorers have won two straight.

La Salle (2-11) led most of the way, taking a 27-23 advantage at intermission, but Towson hung around while the Explorers shot just 22.2 percent from the field in the second half. La Salle was 18 of 22 from the line. Towson shot 41.2 percent from the field (21 of 51), but was just 1 of 10 from distance and 8 of 11 from the line.

Brian Fobbs and Jakigh Dottin each scored 12 points for Towson (4-8).