TOLEDO, Ohio – Sophomore Sam Lewis scored a career-high 18 points and made all seven of his shots from the field on Saturday afternoon to lead the Toledo men's basketball team (6-3) to a 111-49 victory over NAIA foe Defiance in Savage Arena. The Rockets' 111 points were their most since defeating Oakland by a 112-90 margin on Nov. 16, 2022.
 
"We needed a game like this after not playing well our last two games," Head Coach Tod Kowalczyk said. "Prior to those two games we had won five in a row and were playing great. I liked the way we shared the basketball and that showed with having 25 assists and just five turnovers. We needed to get our edge back and I thought we started to do that today."
 
Lewis was joined in double figures by sophomore Javan Simmons (16 pts.), sophomore Sonny Wilson (16 pts.), freshman Jaylan Ouwinga (13 pts.), sophomore Grgur Brcic (13 pts.) and sophomore Bryce Ford (13 pts.).
 
Brcic also grabbed a career-high nine rebounds to help the Rockets to a 52-25 rebounding average. Fifth-year senior Isaiah Adams tallied nine points, six rebounds and a career-high 10 assists.
 
Toledo shot 65.7% from the field and limited Defiance to a 28.8 shooting mark.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
 
FIRST HALF

• Toledo scored the game's first six points then pulled away from Defiance with a 14-0 run that made it 26-7 with under 10 minutes to play in half.
• After Defiance trimmed the lead to 29-11, Toledo went on a 10-0 spurt that gave the Rockets a 39-11 margin with 6:15 left in the half.
• A dunk by Jaylan Ouwinga with a minute left capped a 15-3 run that extended the lead to 37 points, 54-17.
• Defiance made a three-pointer at the buzzer to cut the margin to 32.
• Javan Simmons scored 14 points on 7-of-8 from the floor and Sam Lewis added 12 points on 5-of-5 in the first 20 minutes.

SECOND HALF

• Sonny Wilson hit a layup followed by a three-point play as Toledo scored the first nine points of the second half to move its lead to an insurmountable 64-23.
• The Rockets' lead ballooned to 53 points later in the half when Andre Lorentsson nailed a three-pointer to make it 84-31 heading into the 12-minute media timeout.
• The largest lead of the game for Toledo was 62 points and came on Jaylen Murphy's breakaway dunk with 10 seconds to play.

 
UP NEXT
Toledo returns to action on Saturday, Dec. 14 when it travels to Youngstown State for a 1:00 p.m. matchup vs. the Penguins in the Beeghly Center.