For the first time since the 2004-05 season, the Elizabethtown College men's basketball team is 2-0, after leading wire to wire in an 86-76 victory over Methodist in the championship of the Days Inn East Blue Jay Classic.

Pequea Valley alum Mike Schatzmann and Chad Piersol had a team-high 23 points to lead the Blue Jays.

"We haven't been 2-0 in a while, so it's a real confidence builder for us, it really is," Blue Jay head coach Bob Schlosser said. "We played our style. Granted, we gave up some layups, but we're a pressing, up-tempo team, and that's going to happen. But I thought we wore them down. We got them to turn it over excessively, and I thought we shared the ball pretty well."

The Blue Jays jumped out to a 14-6 lead in the early moments of the game, behind Schatzmann and two other Lancaster County products — Hempfield's Josh Houseal (9 points) and Solanco's Mike Church (14 points). The Monarchs went on a 5-0 run to close to within three, but a Piersol 3-pointer halted the run.

"We need to be able to stop people's runs," Schatzmann said. "Once they go on a 4-, 6-0 run, we need to be able to stop it. We didn't do that last night, but tonight they made their runs, we stopped them. … That was real important."

Methodist went on another run in the final 1:30 of the first half, closing to within seven before E-town freshman Keith Fogel hit a 3-pointer to give the Blue Jays a 47-37 halftime lead. It was the smallest lead the Blue Jays had in the second half, until Methodist cut the lead to nine on a jumper by senior Billy McDade, who had a game-high 26 points. But that was as close as the Monarchs got, as the Blue Jays made plays down the stretch to put the game away.

"They got within nine points the one time, and we ended the run," said Piersol, the tournament MVP. "We made some plays, and that's what good teams do. … We executed down the stretch and got a couple layups, so we didn't live and die by the jump shot."

"We didn't get tentative," Schlosser said. "I think in years past, sometimes we would play not to lose. Today, I think we kept our assertiveness up at both ends. We never got back on our heels, and we kept the pressure on."

Piersol and Schatzmann, both named to the all-tournament team, were pleased with the 2-0 start.

"We struggled in our first two scrimmages, and we lost both of them. So coming into this weekend, we were confident but not as confident as we should've been," Schatzmann said. "But after this weekend, it's going to give us the confidence we need to move on to the next level."

Schlosser tried to keep the tournament wins in perspective.

"It's a long season, and a lot of things will happen between now and league season," Schlosser said. "This is when we're trying to find out who can play and who can contribute. … We're just glad to win our own tournament."