LEWISTON, Idaho – Lewis-Clark State College's men's basketball team weathered some hit-and-miss shooting early on and managed to almost hold its own on the boards against a bigger Providence team en route to an 80-71 victory at the Activity Center Thursday night.
 
"It's been a tough matchup for us," said coach Brandon Rinta after the Warriors improved to 19-6 overall and 8-5 in league play – and more importantly in the hunt with Carroll and Montana-Western for the regular-season title.
 
"The difference tonight was us being able to limit our turnovers. That was big for us."
 
Having just 10 total turnovers, Rinta said, and being ever more mindful of their defensive assignments as the game progressed turned the tide.
 
"Defensively," he said, "we were not great in the first half – even that first minute of the second half wasn't great. Then they found another level defensively. Thankfully."
 
The result was the Warriors were able to gain some breathing room in a game during which there had been only a shot or two separating the teams all night. Andre McCowan, who led all scorers with 23 points, started the surge with a 3-pointer to give LC a 67-63 lead with 6:14 to play. Derrick White, after a steal by Cory Dollarhide, added a basket on an assist from Race Martin to make it 69-63 with 5:58 to go.
 
Martin put the Warriors up by eight a couple minutes later and Dollarhide gave them an 11-point edge, 76-65, with a 3-pointer at the 3:42 mark.
 
In addition to McCowan's 23, Dollarhide had 14 points and Jeremy Franklin 10 to pace LC. The Warriors were outrebounded, but only slightly (28-24) as both teams shot more than 50 percent from the field – 55.6 for LC and 54 for Providence.