Warrior men use big first half to hold off
Great Falls 73-57 
2-10-07  

Holding the University of Great Falls scoreless for nearly a 10-minute stretch of the first half helped the Lewis-Clark State College men’s basketball team to a 73-57 win over the Argonauts in Frontier Conference play on Saturday night. 

The win keeps the Warriors a half-game behind Carroll for first place in the conference. LCSC 19-6 overall and 8-2 in conference play, while Great Falls, despite a big second-half rally, lost its 11th straight game to go to 11-16 and 0-11. 

Great Falls’ Rashaun Puryear scored on an offensive rebound to put the Argonauts up 9-6 with 16:04 left in the first half. Great Falls, however, didn’t reach double digits until Puryear hit a free throw with 6:29 left in the half, and didn’t score from the field until Puryear hit a jumper at the 5:23 mark. By that time, the Warriors had rolled out to a 30-12 lead. 

(John Daly with a buzzer-beating dunk just before
half-time)

LCSC pushed the lead to 50-25 early in the second half and seemed to have things under control, but Great Falls hit seven 3-pointers in the second half and cut the margin to 66-57 with more than three minutes remaining. LCSC answered the call by scoring the final nine points of the game to preserve the win. 

Senior guard Teran Lee, junior forward Mike Gordy and freshman point guard Napoleon Gordon combined for 50 of LCSC’s 73 points, including 24 of the team’s 30 points in the second half. Lee scored 19 points and hit three of LCSC’s five 3-point shots. Gordy added 16 points, while Gordon finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and five steals. Gordon was 7-of-8 from the field. 

Gordy and Lee each had four points during the 9-0 run to end the game. 

Jared Tikker led the Warriors with 10 rebounds. 

Puryear had game highs of 23 points and 11 rebounds. Jay Jamison added 13 points and Jason Goodman had 10. Both also sparked a 22-6 second-half run by Great Falls. 

For the game, LCSC finished 27-of-58 from the field for 46.6 percent, while Great Falls was 23-of-58 for 39.7 percent. LCSC also had a 36-33 rebounding advantage. 

The Warriors continue Frontier Conference play next weekend when they take on Montana Tech in Butte on Friday, and then face Montana-Western Saturday in Dillon.