Lions top Southwest 74-65 at home for second straight conference win
The EMCC Lions pulled even in conference play on the year with a 74-65 home victory over Southwest Mississippi during Monday’s MACCC basketball action played at Keyes T. Currie Coliseum. In women’s action, the cold-shooting Lady Lions dropped a 60-43 decision to the visiting Southwest Lady Bears.
SCOOBA – The Lions of East Mississippi Community College pulled even in conference play on the year with a 74-65 home victory over Southwest Mississippi during Monday's MACCC basketball action played at Keyes T. Currie Coliseum. In women's action, the cold-shooting Lady Lions dropped a 60-43 decision to the visiting Southwest Lady Bears.
In the men's nightcap, the home-standing Lions rode the hot hand of Andrew Mason, who connected on seven of his first eight field goal attempts over the game's opening nine minutes, to take a double-digit, first-half lead. After going up by 10 points (19-9) on the heels of consecutive Mason three-pointers, EMCC later increased the margin to 16 points (27-11) when Ashten Michael's trey followed back-to-back, two-point buckets by Mason.
Southwest managed to cut into the Lions' double-figure advantage on Corey Lombard's pair of made free throws with 23.7 seconds left in the opening half, before Terrell Dixon's buzzer-beating three-pointer made it a 41-31 contest heading into halftime.
The visiting Bears came back from the break continuing to trim EMCC's lead. After a 10-4 Southwest run early in the second half made it 50-46 on Mark Drone's basket, Hunter McCutcheon answered with a three-pointer for the Lions. With Mason out of the game nursing an eye injury, Terrell Dixon and Johnny Taylor Jr. stepped up with key back-to-back baskets to bump the margin back up to nine points (59-50) with just under nine minutes remaining in the contest.
The Bears did manage to pull within eight points over the game's final couple of minutes, but the Lions had an answer for every Southwest comeback attempt down the stretch on the way to posting their second straight MACCC win following a 0-2 start.
Despite his limited second-half minutes, EMCC's Mason finished the night with a game-high 22 points (18 in the first half) to extend his season-long streak of scoring in double figures to 17 consecutive games. Nick Walker registered his 18th career double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds for the Lions, while Tremaine Dixon Jr. and Terrell Dixon added 12 and 10 points, respectively, for the winners.
The Southwest men put three players in double figures, led by Drone's 15 points. Jahshawne Joseph and Deon Brown followed with 13 and 10 points, respectively, for the Bears.
In women's action, the Lady Lions could never recover from a game-opening, 12-0 Southwest run that increased to a 24-8 advantage by the end of the first quarter.
Though EMCC managed to nearly keep pace with the Lady Bears during second-half play, the visitors maintained their double-digit margin throughout most of the contest. The Lady Lions were able to cut Southwest's lead to 10 points (30-20) late in the opening half on Kennedi McCray's basket, but that's as close as they would get the remainder of the contest.
Ultimately, however, it was EMCC's sub-par shooting effort that spelled doom for the home team. In addition to committing 18 turnovers on the night, the Lady Lions shot just 26 percent (17-65 FGs) from the field overall, including 2-of-15 (13%) from three-point range, and only 41 percent (7-17 FTs) from the charity stripe.
EMCC's Kylah Bell extended her current string of double-figure scoring outings to eight consecutive games with 17 points against Southwest. McCray followed with 11 points for the Lady Lions. Though limited to only 5-of-28 (18%) combined shooting and just 13 points between them, EMCC's inside tandem of Hannah McDougle and Nakeria Scales grabbed 12 and 11 rebounds, respectively.
East Mississippi's basketball teams will travel to Wesson to meet Copiah-Lincoln on Thursday to tip off the month of February.
