All good things have to come to an end, and Schreiner University's men's basketball team learned that Saturday night.
The Mountaineers, who came into Saturday afternoon in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference lead, got off a slow start and could never quite make it all the way back in a loss to St. Thomas, 64-56.
It was a critical loss because it puts St. Thomas back into the SCAC lead. It was a bit of a letdown after Friday night's impressive rout of Colorado College — a game that the players described as their most "connected" effort of the season, according to coach Marwan Elrakawaby.
"We were missing that connection defensively," Elrakwaby said. "Now, granted, (St. Thomas) made some shots."
However, Schreiner suffered through some long-scoring droughts.
With 10 minutes left, senior guard Alex Dehoyos hit a jumper to cut St. Thomas' lead to 48-47. After that, the Mountaineers missed on five consecutive scoring possessions, including three layups, and didn't score against until Dehoyos hit a 3-pointer with 4:41 left.
Schreiner's Reid Jackson goes for layup against St. Thomas on Saturday night. |
This was a St. Thomas team that Schreiner ambushed on the road on Dec. 31, which sparked the Mountaineers six-game winning streak. In turn, St. Thomas was coming off a loss on Friday night at Trinity College.
But the one obvious thing was St. Thomas was going to play its style of basketball — and they hold a considerable size advantage over Schreiner.
"Offensively, their size and their (defensive) switching really bothered us," Elrakawaby said.
Schreiner's Alex Dehoyos was limited to seven points. |
The Mountaineers shot 32.8% from the field and had one of their worst scoring nights of the season. Dehoyos struggled against the St. Thomas defense, limited to just seven points — just the third time he's been held under 10 points this season against a Division III opponent.
Instead, Bronson Evans came off the bench to score 13 points and grab seven rebounds, but he also turned the ball over six times. Kamden Ross, who has been dominant at times in the SCAC, was held to just eight points.
Bronson Evans came off the bench to score a team-high 13 points for the Mountaineers. |
At 5-3, Schreiner is still in the hunt for the conference lead, but the Mountaineers still face a challenging schedule with seven games left in the regular season. Schreiner hits the road this coming week with games at Austin College in Sherman and Centenary College in Shreveport.
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