Lopes 2-1 from the road

LCC men's basketball completed a three road game stretch this past week, returning with two wins.

On Tuesday, November 8, the LCC men topped Clarendon College with a score of 82-75. 

The Lopes managed to shoot 14 more shots than Clarendon on the night, and won the rebounding battle with 52 rebounds to Clarendon's 47. 

It was a very tight game in the first half; Clarendon went into the locker room up by only two points at half time with a score of 43-41.  The second half began with a run by Clarendon and they jumped to a quick lead of 10 points.  The Lopes slowly began climbing back, thanks to the defensive stop and an efficient offense.  LCC took the lead back with four minutes left on the clock and closed out the game with hitting free throws at the end.

The top performers of the night were Michael Skinner (16 points, five rebounds), Ryley Stewart (12 points, three rebounds), Richard Caldwell (10 points, three assists), and Devon Jacob who led the team with 12 rebounds next to his 10 points on the night.

"Our guys fought the adversity throughout the second half and had a stellar performance to close the game out," said LCC head coach Sercan Fenerci.  "Our bench gave us great minutes to keep us in the game as well as began our run midway through the 2nd half."

The Lopes then traveled to Goodland, Kansas, on over the weekend to play two games in Northwest Kansas Tech College's Pizza Hut Classic.

On Friday, Lamar played the NWKTC JV squad and came up on top with a score of 96-64.

Friday's top performers were Wayne Stewart (20 points, 6 rebounds), Logan Longo (15 points), and Andre Hardy (8 points, 10 rebounds).

"We had a chance to give everyone a chance to play good amount of minutes to see how everyone will do. It was a good win for us to get our momentum going in the season," Coach Fenerci said.

The Lopes then faced Northwest Kansas Tech College varsity team on Saturday afternoon.

The teams were knotted at 32-32 to end the half with teams playing strong defensively.  NWKTC made a couple runs to gain a double digit lead in the beginning of the second half.  While LCC fought back and cut the lead to as low as 6 points, the team ultimately came up short.  The Lopes dropped the game 73-64.

LCC dominated the rebounding battle but had a very poor shooting night.

Wayne Stewart finished with 25 points and six rebounds, while Michael Skinner was the only other Lope with a double digit scoring with 11.

"Northwest Kansas Tech is always a very tough place to play. They are a very physical team with great guard play," said Coach Fenerci.  "We had a 7 to 8 minutes long stretch in the beginning of the second half where we could not hit any shots and had several defensive mistakes to give them the lead. It was a great game for us to see where we need to get better at on both ends of the floor."

After 3 games on the road, the Lopes are now 5-1 on the season.

The Runnin' Lopes will have three home games this week, starting with Clarendon College (Texas) at 6:00pm on Tuesday, November 15; then Frank Phillips College (Texas) at 7:00pm on Friday; and finishing with a home stand vs. Northern New Mexico College at 4:00pm on Saturday in Wellness Center.