Spartan men prevail in close contest
Dec. 1—The Spartans (4-4) won their third matchup in a row in front of the home crowd Wednesday as they topped North Central Missouri College 74-67 in a back-and-forth battle.
"I thought we did a good job getting timely stops," Southwestern Coach Shane Sweany said. "We hit some big shots down the stretch to extend the lead. That definitely helped."
AJ Doctor came off the bench to lead the Spartans in scoring with 16 points including shooting 4-7 from the free throw line. Doctor had seven rebounds and three assists.
AJ Doctor puts up a contested mid-range shot. Doctor led scoring for the Spartans with 16 and had seven rebounds and three assists.
More help from the bench came in Andrew Scoggins who led the team in rebounds with nine.
Coming into the matchup, Sweany had two things for the team to focus on.
"Our biggest two goals coming in were to limit paint touches and limit turnovers," Sweany said. "We had 10 turnovers. On the year, we are averaging well over double figures, almost 20. We did a great job limiting our turnovers, and I thought we really battled to limit paint touches. They are really aggressive downhill, but I thought we made it tough when they got in the paint and especially around the rim."
The two teams faced off earlier this month when the Pirates took an 85-73 victory over the Spartans.
With only a one-point lead at the half, the Spartans went back and forth with the Pirates in scoring.
Southwestern shot better from the field, finding 45% of shots including 44% of 3-pointers. North Central shot 40% from the field and only 28% behind the arc.
Patrick Worrell splits defenders as he keeps the ball moving. Worrell had seven points agains North Central Missouri College.
Though the Spartans began to pull away down the stretch, fouls hampered their game play.
"We've got to stop fouling. We've got to be smarter," Sweany said. "In practice every day we work on a wall-up drill where we try to wall out and not foul. We need to keep working on that. When we're guarding on defense, we can't use our hands. We had too many fouls so we've got to clean that up."
With two minutes left, the Spartans were only up by two points, but a four-point scoring run gave them a six-point lead with 30 seconds remaining.
Fatih Huyuk (No. 20) sets a screen for Donnary Fontenot as he drives toward the basket. Fontenot had 13 points for the Spartans while Huyuk added seven.
"That's huge. I think it's a good learning experience for us too that regardless of how much time is left, you've still got to finish," Sweany said. "I thought we did a good job getting timely stops. We hit some big shots down the stretch to extend the lead. That definitely helped."
Starters Bogdan Cret and Donnary Fontenot put up 15 and 13 points, respectively and Kyren Angelo added 10.
The team returns to action Saturday at Metropolitan Community College. They return home Wednesday, Nov. 13 against Northeast Community College.
