JOHNSON, Vt. – Visiting Castleton State College raced out to a big first half lead and earned a North Atlantic Conference (NAC) men's basketball victory over host Johnson State College on Tuesday night by the score of 84-67 at Carter Gymnasium.  Johnson dips to 8-15 overall, 6-10 NAC while Castleton improves to 13-10, 11-5 NAC.

Johnson was led by freshman guard Asim Khan (Torrance, Calif./Torrance) who finished with a game-high 21 points, six steals, and five assists while junior guard Lester Alexander (Burlington, Vt./Burlington) supplied 13 points on 4-of-5 shooting, 3-of-4 from the 3-point line.  Senior Cody Camisa (Colchester, Vt./Colchester) scored 12 points and hauled down a team-high eight rebounds.

The Spartans placed four players in double-figures led by Mark Comstock (Rutland, Vt./Rutland) and his 15-point effort.  Junior Jeremy Odena (Boston, Mass./Minuteman) provided 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting, 3-of-4 from 3-point range, freshman forward Chad Copeland (Plainfield, Vt./Twinfield) had 12 points and eight boards, and junior guard Tyler Ackley (Scotia, N.Y./Scotia-Glenville) scored 10 points.

Johnson jumped out to a quick early lead behind five points from sophomore guard Ron Adrian (Schenectady, N.Y./Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons) and four points from Khan to make the score 9-6 Badgers just over three and half minutes into the contest.  There the hosts would stall out as Castleton went on an impressive 30-1 surge over the next 10 minutes and earn a comfortable 36-10 lead with 7:37 to play in the first half.  The lead would balloon to as much as 35 in the first before the teams would go to the locker room with the Spartans leading 53-21.

The Badgers showed some life in the second half grabbing early momentum following a pair of Camisa 3-pointers to open the stanza.  Behind a newly energized defense and the scoring of Khan and Alexander, who combined 25 points in the half with Alexander netting all of his 13 for the game,  Johnson was able to cut the lead to 11 with just under two minutes to play.  But it was too little, too late as the rally fell short and the Spartans pulled again pulled away for the 17-point win.

Johnson will move on to host a pair of game this weekend to complete their regular-season schedule with Husson University on Friday at 5:30 pm and Maine Maritime Academy on Saturday at 1:00 pm.  Castleton will wrap up its regular-season next week with a game at New England College on Thursday at 5:30 pm and a home contest against Colby-Sawyer College on Saturday at 1:00 pm.