Justin Griffin/Sports Editor 

A win is just a win. 

Right? 

Not exactly. 

Appalachian’s  86-82 overtime win over Wofford meant more than the contest at hand Monday night. 

The win evened things up between the Mountaineers and archrival Davidson after the Wildcats dropped a close one to cellar-dweller UNC-Greensboro on the road 73-67 that night. 

For Davidson, the loss marked their second in a row and put Appalachian back in the thick of the race for one of the top two spots in the North Division. 

Marshall Phillips led the way for the Apps with 23 points.  Matt McMahon added 16 points off the strength of his 5-for-5 three point shooting.  All of which came in the first half. 

Ian Chadwick led Wofford with 24 points. 

The win marked the second straight for ASU, who improved to 8-6 on the season. 

The Mountaineers began turning things around with a 100-64 win over Virginia Military two days earlier. 

‘’It’s good to see some smiles around here,’’ said Coach Buzz Peterson, whose Mountaineers bounced back from losses to Davidson and College of Charleston with the VMI win. ‘’It seems like it’s been a while since we’ve been on the winning side. This was something we really needed. We were about as low as we could be.’’ 

Leading the way for the Mountaineers in the 100-point effort was Tyson Patterson, who finished with 21 points and seven assists, including a break-away dunk in the second half, which was his first in a college game. 

Peterson, asked if Patterson dunks in practice, answered, ‘’He does — after we’re done. I’ve seen him dunk it, but if he had missed that one I’d probably have climbed his back.’’ 

Cedrick Holmes also had a career-high game with 16 points and 12 rebounds. 

‘’We recruited Cedrick to be a force inside,’’ Peterson said. ‘’We talked to him this week about being aggressive and confident, and about us getting him the basketball where he can score.” 

The game was not much of a contest.  Appalachian jumped out to a 20-point lead early in the game and kept up a wide margin throughout. 

“Four out of the last five games, we’ve had slow starts,’’ Peterson said. ‘’We really focused on us being the aggressor, us setting the tempo and us dictating what VMI was going to do. You’re going to get shots against them because of the way they press you, and we did a good job of driving it to the hole.’’ 

On Jan. 4 in Varsity Gym, the College of Charleston Cougars were the aggressors in their 77-57 win over Appalachian in Varsity Gym. 
Phillips again led the way for Appalachian in the effort with 18 points. 

Four of five cougar starters finished in double digit scoring.  Danny Johnson paced the Cougars with  17 points and hit three out of four three-pointers. 

The difference in game was field goal shooting.  Charleston shot nearly 58 percent while ASU shot just 31 percent.  

Two nights earlier Appalachian fell at Davidson 82-73. 

The Wildcats (6-5, 1-0) hit 10 of 22 3-point goals, 20 of 28 free throws and hammered the Mountaineers on the boards 47-27. 

‘’It’s disappointing to lose to them again, but they are a very good ball club,’’ said Peterson after that game. “It’s one of those things where they’ve got our number and we just spotted them too big of a lead to do anything about it.” 

‘’They’re so physical inside,’’ said Peterson, whose team, with a relatively small and quick starting lineup, was without 7’1” center Josh Grover.   ‘’Davidson has always been much bigger than we are, more physical and powerful. It was tough to stop them inside, and they hit some big threes on us. . . . I didn’t expect them to shoot like that. If those guys hit from outside like that, they’re going to be very tough to beat.’’ 

Prior to the Davidson game, Appalachian had won two straight.  The first against Winthrop, 74-53 and the latter was against The Citadel 81-65. Both of those wins came after a 63-60 loss to Georgia.  This Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. ASU travels to Chattanooga.