Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
KINGSVILLE, Texas — Despite all that the Eastern New Mexico men's basketball team has been through down the stretch, the Greyhounds are headed to the Lone Star Conference playoffs.
Their recent four-game losing streak ranged from heartbreak — as in an overtime loss to Angelo State — to the improbable — a loss to struggling Western New Mexico. Saturday, though, it was all officially tucked away in the past, as the Hounds nipped Texas A&M-Kingsville 58-56 on Maurice Coleman's jumper with 27 seconds left to clinch a seat at the LSC tournament table. They will face top-seeded West Texas A&M at Dr. Pepper Arena in Frisco, Texas, next Friday, with tipoff time slated for 7:30 p.m.
The Greyhounds (11-16, 6-12 LSC) earned that game by surviving a close one, something they hadn't been able to do in recent games before Saturday. Eastern had fallen behind 56-54 with 1:19 to go, when A&M-Kingsville's Derrick Byrd nailed a jumper. 10 seconds later, ENMU head coach Tres Segler called a 30-second timeout and 17 seconds after that, Eastern's Lamarquis Thompson hit the game-tying jump shot and was fouled. His and-one free-throw attempt wouldn't go down and the score remained tied at 56 with 52 ticks left on the second-half clock.
Thompson's miss, however, turned into good fortune for the Greyhounds, who collected the offensive rebound, setting up the possession that ended with Coleman's bucket, assisted by Arcaim Lallemand 25 seconds later.
The game had been close throughout, with Eastern leading only 32-30 at halftime. It was tied at 48 with four and a half minutes to play in the second half, when Jamani Pierce buried a trey off Coleman's assist.
A&M-Kingsville's Trey Sumpter tried to get all those points back in a hurry, attempting a three on the other end that missed, and Eastern's Zach Parker gobbled up the defensive board, starting a possession that ended with another Pierce trey off another Coleman feed. With that, ENMU was up 54-48 with 3:37 to play in the second half.
The lead, however, was short-lived — a minute and 35 seconds of life, to be exact — because by the 2:02 mark, the game was tied at 54, thanks to a pair of Derrick Byrd threes during that short span. 1:10 after that, Byrd sank his go-ahead jumper, completing an 8-0 A&M-Kingsville run. The stage was set for Eastern's late-game heroics.
Shawn Shelton led a balanced Eastern scoring attack with 12 points, followed by Coleman with 11. Thompson doled out four assists for the Hounds. ENMU's Isaac Maldonado came up with three steals in only 10 minutes of floor time.
A&M-Kingsville's Caelan Neal paced all scorers with 13 points. Byrd added 11 for the Javelinas (12-16, 5-13).
Saturday's result marked ENMU's first win against A&M-Kingsville in two years, and first road victory over the Javs in more than four years.
