Men’s Basketball Comeback Falls Short
Emile scores 30 in the contest
MARS HILL, N.C. - The Lions' men's basketball team overcame a 14-point deficit but their rally fell short with a 77-75 loss to visiting Lenoir-Rhyne Saturday evening in Stanford Arena. Mars Hill fell to 4-15 overall and 2-8 in the SAC. The Bears improved to 10-9 on the season and 6-4 in the league.
Sammy Emile, the NCAA Division II leader in scoring, posted a game high 30 points in the loss converting on 8-14 field goals and 11-12 attempts at the charity stripe. He added eight rebounds, five assists and three steals. Terrell Harris and Cody King followed with 19 and 13 points in the contest, respectively.
The Bears enjoyed balanced scoring with 10 players finding the net. Jeff Thomas led L-R with 16 points followed by Allan Jones with 10. The Bears out rebounded the Lions, 36-25 and received 36 points from their bench. L-R hit 58.2% (32-55) from the floor while the Lions connected on 44.6% (25-66) of their shots.
MHC enjoyed a five-point lead (11-6) at the 15:05 mark after Noble Cuningham hit a layup. The Bears then went on a 27-11 run to take a 11-point advantage at the 6:01 mark after Jones hit a shot in the lane. L-R would take a 12-point lead (44-32) into the locker room at the intermission.
A 3-pointer by Hunter McClintock gave the Bears their largest lead of the game with 18:58 left in the second frame. MHC then clawed back into the contest out scoring L-R 24-10 over the next eight minutes to tie the game at 59-all with 10:43 left in regulation.
After that point the game would see two ties and four lead changes before Bryce Hawkins gave the Bears the lead for good with eight ticks left when he converted a driving layup. A shot that missed iron led to a shot clock violation that gave L-R the ball with 17 seconds left in the game.
The Lions had a good look at a 3-pointer at the buzzer but the shot went in and out as the Bears prevailed with the two-point victory.
Lenoir-Rhyne remains on the road to face Anderson in a South Atlantic Conference game on Wednesday beginning at 8 p.m. Mars Hill, meanwhile, plays at league-foe Newberry on Wednesday at 8 p.m., as well.