LEWISTON, Idaho – Falling behind 15-0 in the game’s first four minutes proved to be too big of a hole for the Lewis-Clark State College men’s basketball team to climb out of and the Warriors fell to Northwestern Oklahoma State 82-66 in the final game of the Cannon’s Building Materials Center Tournament at the LCSC Activity Center on Saturday night.
The Warriors, who were without injured starting guards JR Gordon and Brian Duckworth, fall to 3-3 on the season while Northwestern Oklahoma State is now 5-4 after its second win of the tournament.
In Saturday’s first game, Evergreen State defeated the University of Great Falls 97-76 to join the Rangers at 2-0 in the tournament, while the two Frontier Conference teams, LCSC and Great Falls, both went 0-2.
Evergreen State’s Nick Moore was named MVP of the tournament and was joined on the all-tournament team by teammate Nathan Menefee along with Brandon Brown and Jason Rogers of Northwestern Oklahoma State, Rayshaun Ames of Great Falls, and Curtis Allen from LCSC.
The Rangers, who defeated LCSC in their only other meeting that took place in the 2007 NAIA national tournament, wasted little time in nearly running LCSC off the floor. The Rangers used their speed and quickness, along with a flat start by LCSC, to roll to a 15-0 advantage less than four minutes into the game.
The Warriors finally got on the board when Daniel Simon scored on an easy inside bucket, but the Rangers kept running and shooting 3-pointers to open up leads of 25-8 and 30-10, which was its largest lead of the night.
LCSC finally came to life and cut the lead to 47-34 at halftime, and then to nine twice in the second half at 53-44 and 60-51, the latter with 11 minutes to play. However, the Warrior offense went back in another shooting lull and the Rangers were never threatened again.
For the night, the Rangers went 25-of-55 from the field for 45.5 percent, and actually shot better from the 3-point arc at 11-of-24 for 45.8 percent. Northwestern Oklahoma also had a 41-37 rebounding edge, forced two more turnovers and had three more steals than the Warriors.
The Rangers also featured a balanced attack with four players in double figures scoring for the second straight night. Brown led the way with 15 points, six rebounds, seven assists, and three steals, while Rogers had 10 points and six rebounds. Cutrell Currie scored 13 points, while Isaac Richardson had 11. The Rangers also had two other players with nine points.
Allen led the Warriors with 18 points, while Simon and Drew Arnold added nine each. Tanner McIntosh had eight points to go along with his game-high nine rebounds. He also had three assists as did freshman point guard Terrell Wallace. Wallace started in place of Duckworth, who rolled an ankle late in Friday night’s loss to Evergreen State. Gordon sat out his third straight game with a back injury. The status for the two is unknown for Thursday’s game at Seattle University.
The Warriors hit on 265-of-64 shots for 40.6 percent accuracy, but had another off night from the 3-point line, connecting on 1-of-9. In the tournament, the Warriors were just 2-of-22 from the 3-point arc. LCSC also was just 13-of-20 at the foul line for 65 percent and finished 28-of-48 (58.3 percent) at the charity stripe in the tourney.
The Warriors have only two home games in December. After Thursday’s trip to Seattle, LCSC heads to Butte to face Montana Tech on Sunday. LCSC then play host to Walla Walla University on Dec. 10 and later plays host to Cascade College on Dec. 28. In between the home games is a two-day tournament at Humboldt State on Dec. 19-20.
