Lions post 85-81 home win over East Central to move to 8-4 in MACCC play

SCOOBA – The Lions of East Mississippi Community College continued their top-four positioning within the MACCC men's basketball standings by hanging on for an 85-81 home win over East Central during Thursday's conference hoops action played at Keyes. T. Currie Coliseum. In women's action, the home-standing Lady Lions battled to the final buzzer before falling, 68-61, to ECCC's Lady Warriors.

Coming off his career-high, 34-point effort earlier in the week in EMCC's 77-67 comeback win at Coahoma, Tremaine Dixon Jr. again provided a spark with back-to-back made three-pointers and a put-back basket of his own miss to give the Lions an early double-figure lead (17-6).

With EMCC maintaining a nine-point advantage (34-25) with six minutes left before halftime, the Warriors used a 13-6 run to cut their deficit to a basket (40-38) during the final seconds. On the final play of the first half, however, Dixon Jr. gave the Lions another shot of momentum heading into intermission by converting a three-point play with just 1.2 seconds left in the half.

EMCC then used an 8-2 spurt to open the second stanza with two more scores by Dixon Jr. and a pair of baskets by Andrew Mason to put the Lions back on top by twin digits (51-40). As the home team seemingly appeared to be in control of the game after extending the margin to 16 points (68-52), East Central put together a 16-1 run that closed the gap to a single point (69-68) on Jay'Lan McNair's jumper with just over seven minutes left in the contest.

After EMCC bumped its lead back up to six points (74-68) by the 4:26 mark, the two teams traded scores for the remainder of the game. With just under a minute left on the game clock, Fateh Bensalah's three-pointer for the Warriors made it a three-point contest (82-79). Walker's basket was answered by Connor Rogers' pair of free throws for ECCC with 40.7 seconds left. The two teams exchanged turnovers down the stretch before Hunter McCutcheon's free throw with less than a second left secured the Lions' four-point victory.

Dixon Jr. claimed game scoring honors with 28 points, while Walker registered his 21^st career double-double with 16 points and a career-best 18 rebounds for the Lions. Mason and McCutcheon followed with 13 and 10 points, respectively, for the winners, who improved to 15-12 overall and 8-4 in MACCC play heading into the final week of regular-season play.

Bensalah led East Central with 25 points, followed by Rogers and Demarcus Powe with 14 points apiece.

The women's contest featured a seven-on-seven matchup as only a combined 14 available players from the two teams suited up for the game. The Lady Lions held the upper hand for a majority of the opening quarter until East Central grabbed a 20-19 edge with a 10-2 run to close out the first 10 minutes of play.

After the Lady Warriors lengthened their lead to double figures (37-25) by halftime, they went up by as many 21 points (54-33) late in the third quarter. To their credit, the Lady Lions continued to cut into the lead by scoring the last four points of the third quarter and then outscoring East Central, 24-14, during the fourth quarter to make it a seven-point contest by the game's end.

Kylah Bell paced the EMCC women with a career-high 23 points along with collecting nine rebounds. Kennedi McCray totaled 16 points, seven rebounds and four assists for the Lady Lions.

The East Central women had four players score in double digits on the night, led by Morgan Freeny and Clementina Odom with 17 and 16 points, respectively. Lexus Keyes added 14 points and Kyla Farmer chipped in with 11 points for the Lady Warriors.

Heading into the final week of MACCC regular-season play prior to the upcoming NJCAA Region 23 Basketball Tournament (March 9-15), the East Mississippi basketball teams will travel to Utica on Monday (March 4) to take on Hinds before playing host to Itawamba on Thursday (March 7). The EMCC-ICC hoops doubleheader will feature a 5:30 p.m. women's game followed by a 7:30 p.m. men's contest at Currie Coliseum on the Scooba campus.