In a battle of two teams that faced each other in the Final Four of the EPACC tournament last year, Delaware forward Tayqwane Wallace made sure his Delaware Phantoms (7-1) came out on top again as he scored 26 points to lead his team 90-54 over the Bucks County Centurions (1-7) on Jan. 22.

“I think we played awesome. We are just coming off a real hard loss against Northampton that was our first loss in the conference, so we just gave it our all tonight because we can’t afford to lose anymore conference games,” Wallace said.

Wallace was the leading man in the first half as he seemed involved in all phases of the game. On offense he drew the Centurions attention which opened things up for his teammates.The Phantom’s defense also kept the Centurions at bay by forcing them out of the paint and into outside shots. The Phantoms caused 26 turnovers and held the Centurions to just 34 percent shooting.

On the other end floor, the Phantom’s offense shot 50 percent and hit five threes to help decide the contest.

In the first half, Delaware captured the lead on multiple occasions only to see the Centurions rally back and take a 16-15 lead away from the Phantoms. The Centurion rally was highlighted by guard Shane Davis, who found forward Tyler Nichol for a nice two-handed slam. Unfortunately, this was the last lead the Centurions would hold.

A heated speech by Delaware coach Dwayne Saunders sparked the Phantoms as they came out of the timeout on a 19-2 run, retaking a 34-18 lead.

“I just called a timeout to get the guys more motivated to let them know that it is now or never. After that I thought the team went out and played like I knew they could,” Saunder said after the game.

In the waning seconds of the first half, the Phantoms maintained their lead while the Centurions looked out of rhythm. Their desperation led to some sloppy passes and shot attempts as they went into the locker room trailing 47-24.

The Centurions second half attempt at a rally was short-lived. The Phantoms went on another scoring binge by outpacing Bucks 16-4, extending their lead to 74-37 around the halfway point of the half.

The Centurions offense seemed to be hindered by their poor shot selection around the three-point line, but Centurion’s head coach Donald Perry disagreed.

“We were taking them to stay in the game,” he said. “Giovanni(Romero ) is our best shooter and I told him at halftime to keep shooting them. If he misses we were going to lose and if he made them we would have been back in the game.”

The Phantoms overwhelmed the Centurions by running the floor in transition most of the night; especially in the latter stages of the game to help build an insurmountable 80-42 lead.

“I think they played us into turnovers,” Romero said. “They showed like they were going to press, but they really didn’t. They dropped back and caused our ball handlers to be hectic which resulted in turnovers and then they just beat us in transition.”

Another timeout refocused the Phantoms and drove them on a 10-2 run, extending the lead to 90-54 and ending all hope of a Centurion comeback.

“We did pretty well. Our defensive intensity was up from the past, so that’s a good sign for us,”

Saunders said. “Offensively, we still have a lot of work to do. We were not as crisp and that is a credit to Bucks because they played good defense at times,” he said after the game. Perry was not as enthused with his team’s play.

“Well, not very well, but we are still assembling. We added two new guys tonight, but they have not had any practice yet with the rest of the team. Our shooting has been awful. It’s been in the dumps, but we are getting a couple more guys eligible for Thursday so we will see how that goes,” he said.