BLINN MEN’S BASKETBALL FENDS OFF LEE COLLEGE FOR REGION XIV WIN
Story by Joe Alberico, Blinn College Sports Information
“Lee is a very good, well-coached basketball team with good players who don’t give up,” Blinn head coach Scott Schumacher said. “There are no easy games in this league, so any time you can get a win, it’s tremendous. I just thought our guys were focused and zeroed in on the task at hand and played a really good game of basketball tonight.”
The Blinn College men’s basketball team built a big second-half lead and weathered a furious Lee College comeback to earn a 68-60 Region 14 victory Wednesday at the Kruse Center in Brenham, Texas.
The Buccaneers completed a two-game regular-season sweep of the Navigators and improved to 18-10 overall and 12-8 in region play.
The opening minutes of Wednesday’s matchup proved rather quiet as 2 minutes, 35 seconds elapsed before the Navigators broke a scoreless stalemate with two free throws. Lee would score the next four points before sophomore forward Nolan Aigberadion got the Bucs going with a thundering dunk.
Freshman guard Connor Sprattley followed Aigberadion with a 3-pointer and sophomore guard Dashawn Ceaser added a layup as the Bucs took a 7-6 lead.
After Lee jumped ahead momentarily, freshman guard Desmeon Jones drilled a 3 to put Blinn ahead once more. The Navigators forced one more tie at 10-all before Jones sank a floater to put his team ahead to stay.
Freshman guard/forward Ian Sedah hit a free throw with 7:11 remaining to give the Bucs a 24-14 cushion.
Lee pulled within 25-21 before an 8-0 run gave Blinn a 33-21 lead heading into the intermission.
“We played our game and moved the ball around, which allowed us to weather the storm,” Ceasar said. “We know Lee is a good team – we already played them at their place and only beat them by two – and we knew they were going to make a run.”
That’s exactly what happened, but the Bucs handled it expertly.
Blinn scored the first six points of the second half to push its advantage to 18, and was still ahead 50-31 midway through when the Navigators started their comeback.
The Bucs took advantage of some Lee foul trouble to earn trips to the free throw line, and hit 12 shots from the line down the stretch to keep their distance.
Lee hit a 3-pointer to make it 66-60 with three seconds to go, but Ceaser was fouled on the subsequent possession and knocked down two charity buckets to put the game on ice.
“When you have an opportunity to put a game away at the line, you have to make your free throws,” Schumacher said. “We did that tonight.”
Caesar led Blinn with 19 points, followed by 15 for Sprattley and 14 for Jones. Sprattley also had 12 rebounds for his first collegiate double-double.
Blinn gets back to work with a region road trip to Bossier Parish Community College at 4 p.m. on Saturday in Bossier City, La.