AMERICUS, Ga.- The Georgia Southwestern men's basketball team held North Georgia to their lowest scoring game of the year Saturday night in the Storm Dome. The Nighthawks came in as the Peach Belt Conference's top scoring offense team averaging 80.9 points per game. The Hurricanes managed to keep the Nighthawks twenty three points below their season average beating them 77-57.

North Georgia moved to 14-8 overall and 8-7 in the PBC. GSW became 12-10 overall and 7-8 in the PBC and moved to the fourth seed in the PBC post season tournament by way of winning a tie breaker.

GSW put up thirty four points in the first and forty three in the second and picked up nineteen rebounds in each half. Deric Rudolph put up a career hight of twenty six points and Josh Birchfield had a career high of seventeen rebounds.

Rudolph started the game out with two 3-pointers for GSW giving them an early lead, followed by Darius Redding with a lay up. Kevin Burnell added to the lead with another 3-pointer followed by Birchfield with a lay up and Rudolph with another 3-pointer to lead 16-6 with 8:17 left in the first. Burnell put in another 3-pointer and a lay up followed by Damien Leonard with a 3-pointer and Birchfield with a lay up to lead 29-16with 3:31 remaining. Leonard put in another 3-pointer to put the Hurricanes up by fourteen at half time, going into the second with a score of 34-20.

Leonard started the second half with a 3-pointer and Rudolph put in another a few moments later followed by another a little over one minute later and another thirty seconds after to put the Canes 49-24 with 15:24 left on the clock. GSW put in four more 3-pointers in the second half to help keep North Georgia well below their season average.

The Hurricanes out rebounded North Georgia 40-34 and had two more turnovers.

GSW is on the road Saturday to face Francis Marion at 3:30 p.m.