NAMPA, Idaho – Falling victim to a 22-4 run in the second half, the Lewis-Clark State College Men's Basketball team fell to Northwest Nazarene University 93-81 in an exhibition contest on Friday night.
LC State led almost the entire first half and held a 54-49 advantage with about 17 minutes left when it turned the ball over a few times and managed only four points during the next seven minutes. That allowed NNU to go on its 22-4 run and take control of the game.
The Warriors were supposed to play College of Idaho on Friday and Northwest Nazarene on Saturday, but the C of I contest had to be cancelled because of COVID-19 issues associated with the Coyotes' program. With that cancellation, the NNU-LC State contest was moved to Friday.
The Warriors are 12-1 on the season and ranked No. 4 in the NAIA, while NNU is 8-1 and ranked No. 23 in the NCAA Division II poll.
"Our guys battled for 40 minutes tonight," LC State coach
Austin Johnson said. "Lots of positive takeaways for us collectively. NNU is a tremendous opponent and ultimately made us pay for lapses with taking care of the basketball and the 3-point line."
In the first half,
Silas Bennion, a 6-foot-1 freshman guard, made his first start of the season and helped the Warriors to an early nine-point run. He hit a jumper and a 3-pointer to give LC State a 9-1 lead.
NNU fought back and eventually grabbed a 21-20 lead at the 9:39 mark when Kobe Terashima hit a jumper, but back-to-back buckets by
Damek Mitchell gave the Warriors the lead. LC stretched the advantage to as much as seven before it settled for an 44-42 lead at halftime.
Khalil Stevenson provided nearly all of LC's offense in the first part of the second half with nine of the team's first 14 points. However, the 22-4 NNU run gave it a 71-58 advantage. LC did cut the margin to nine twice, the final time at 88-79, but NNU answered each time.
"We turned it over too much and they got out in transition to get some easy looks from 3 and at the rim," Johnson said of the NNU spurt.
Mitchell had a solid outing for the Warriors with 20 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. Stevenson added 13 points, while Bennion,
Jake Albright and
Oreon Courtney had 11 points each.
Both teams finished 31-of-63 from the field, but NNU was 12-of-26 at the 3-point line, while LC was 7-of-21. The Warriors did hold a 38-29 rebounding edge, but had 18 turnovers.
"We're grateful to have gotten this game in and will keep working to improve," Johnson said.
The Warriors return home to wrap up the regular season this week with a pair of games against Multnomah University, a fellow Cascade Collegiate Conference member from Portland. The two games are non-league contests because the CCC won't begin conference play until late March. Multnomah has only recently started limited practice because of state and local COVID guidelines in Oregon.
The two teams will play at 6 p.m. on both Wednesday and Thursday nights at the LC State Activity Center.
The Warriors will then kick off a best-of-three playoff against College of Idaho to determine the conference's automatic berth to the national tournament. The first game is set for Feb. 18 at the home site of the highest ranked team in the NAIA poll, which will likely be LC State based on its current ranking. College of Idaho received three votes in current poll.
