Lopes Basketball Returns 1-1 From the Road

LCC Men's Basketball traveled to Hutchinson, Kansas, to play in Hutchinson Community College Classic over the weekend.  The Lopes played Hutchinson, the second-ranked team in the nation, and Southwestern College. 

On Friday, LCC faced Hutchinson.  They started the game red hot from behind the arc by connecting five of its six three-point attempts.  The Lopes had the lead until HCC got its first lead midway thru the first half.  Several crucial turnovers by the Lopes and good execution from the Blue Dragons helped HCC to go to half time with a lead of fourteen points (48-34).

"Our shot selection in the first half was not good," said LCC Head Coach Serg Fenerci.  "We settled for three-point and long jump shots.  Hitting five three-pointers to begin the game gave us a wrong impression and got us out of our game."

The second half started with another run by HCC, putting the Blue Dragons up by 25 points at one point in the game, but Coach Fenerci's team did not quit.

"We knew there was a lot of time left to play; we kept fighting and began playing our game," he said.

LCC cut the lead to eight points with less than five minutes left on the clock. However, the Lopes could not get closer than that as HCC hit a couple of crucial three-pointers to put the game away.  The final score was LCC 88- HCC 102.

"Our team has a lot to learn from this game. You have to put together complete games to win over nationally ranked teams like Hutch," said Coach Fenerci.

Stat leaders for the game included Chris Lewis with career high 19 rebounds and 9 points, Shafeek Taylor with 25 points and 6 rebounds, and Jiere Morrisey with 14 points.

On Saturday afternoon LCC faced off with Southwestern College.  LCC started the game very slow, but the Lopes' full court pressure proved to be too much for Southwestern.  LCC went to half time with a lead of nineteen points (55-36).  

The second half was similar to the first until the last few minutes of the game, where the Lopes played very sluggish on both ends of the floor and allowed Southwestern to get easy points.  This run by Southwestern was not enough to close to gap, however, and the Lopes won the game 110-83.

Stat leaders for the Southwestern game included Wayne Stewart with 23 points and Shaffek Taylor with 20 points and 8 rebounds.  Four additional players finished the game with scoring stats in the double figures.

Both the Men's (7:00pm) and Women's (5:00pm) teams will host Clarendon College on Tuesday, November 17th in Wellness Center.  Anyone 18 years old and under will get free admission to both games.