Lady Lions drop 67-53 road decision to Northwest Mississippi

SENATOBIA – The EMCC Lady Lions dropped a 67-53 road decision to Northwest Mississippi during Thursday's MACCC basketball action played at Howard Coliseum. In the men's nightcap, the visiting Lions made 17 three-pointers to get back into the win column with a commanding 98-58 road victory over the Rangers.

In the women's contest, the Lady Lions battled from behind most of the evening with the exception of a pair of ties at 13-13 and 16-16 along with one-point leads at 17-16 and 28-27. The high point of the game for the visitors came at the start of the second half when EMCC overcame a five-point halftime deficit by going on a 6-0 spurt to take their final lead of the contest.

After the Lady Lions took the 28-27 lead early in the half, the Lady Rangers responded by outscoring EMCC, 12-4, the rest of the third quarter to move ahead, 39-32. Northwest then opened up the fourth quarter with a 9-1 spurt to lengthen the margin to 15 points (48-33).

Led by the perimeter shooting of Kiara Howard and Kylah Bell, the Lady Lions were able to cut Northwest's double-digit lead to nine points on two occasions in the final period. EMCC would not get any closer than that, however, as the Lady Rangers pulled away down the stretch to secure the 14-point win and even the regular-season series. Back in November, EMCC handed the Lady Rangers their first setback of the season with a 54-49 home win in Scooba.

Falling to 3-14 overall and 0-3 in MACCC play, the Lady Lions were led by Bell and Howard, who scored 19 and 17 points, respectively, and each connected on four three-pointers. Along with Nakeria Scales' dozen points, the trio combined to score 48 of EMCC's 53 total points in the contest.

Improving to 10-3 overall and 2-0 in the MACCC, Northwest was led by Kae'la Mitchell's 16 points. Mariah Reed-Jones and Mikayla Abram followed with 12 and 10 points, respectively.

EMCC's Hunter McCutcheon set the tone in the men's nightcap by hitting three of his first four three-point attempts to stake the visitors to an early 9-4 lead.  

Around the midway point of the opening half, Ashten Michael and Johnny Taylor Jr. connected on back-to-back treys to give EMCC a double-digit lead at 23-11. By the half as a team, the Lions were 9-of-22 beyond the three-point arc in extending the halftime margin to 18 points (45-27).

McCutcheon, out of Louisville, Kentucky, then promptly drilled his first two three-point attempts coming out of intermission to continue his hot hand from the perimeter. Later in the second stanza, the Lions scored 17 unanswered points to extend their advantage to 46 points (84-38) with seven minutes still remaining on the game clock.

By the time the smoke had settled from the blazing nets due to EMCC's hot-shooting night, the Lions had connected on 17-of-40 (42.5%) shots from long range. The sizzling three-point effort marked the most made treys by the Lions since head coach Billy Begley's first EMCC team hit 17 three-pointers during a 108-56 home win over Spring Hill College JV in 2015-16.

McCutcheon's game-high 18 points on 6-of-13 accuracy from beyond the three-point arc paced a quintet of double-digit EMCC scorers. Taylor followed with 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field, while Michael (4-8 treys) and Tremaine Dixon Jr. (3-6 treys) added 14 points apiece for the winners. Sophomore guard Andrew Mason, also a Kentucky native, contributed 11 points to extend his season-long streak of scoring in double figures to 16 consecutive games.

Northwest (4-10, 0-2 MACCC) was led in scoring by Keanu Patrick and DeShun Dunn with 11 and 10 points, respectively.    

With the 40-point road win to complete their regular-season sweep over Northwest, the Lions improved to 8-10 overall on the year with their first conference win in three tries. Earlier this season (Nov. 27) in non-conference play, EMCC posted a 74-50 home win over the Rangers.

The East Mississippi basketball teams return to home action by playing host to the visiting Bears of Southwest Mississippi on Monday (Jan. 29) in Scooba. A 5:30 p.m. women's game will be followed by a 7:30 p.m. men's contest at EMCC's Keyes T. Currie Coliseum.