January 28, 2010

RedStorm nearly miss pulling huge upset

Rio Grande --- The University of Rio Grande RedStorm men's basketball team nearly pulled off a huge upset on Thursday night at the Newt Oliver Arena against NAIA No. 14 Pikeville College. Pikeville held on for a thrilling 84-83 come-from-behind victory. 

Rio Grande (5-16, 0-5 MSC) led for the majority of the game, but could not close the deal as a 15-point second half lead evaporated down the stretch. The game was close throughout the first half and the score was tied at 42-42 at halftime.

The RedStorm went on a 16-2 run to open the second half and seemingly gained control of the game at 58-44. Rio would get the lead as high as 15 points at 63-48 in the second half.

Pikeville College (17-2, 4-1 MSC), one of three teams at the top of the conference at game's beginning, managed to keep its cool and worked its way back into the ballgame using a 16-5 run to cut the deficit to four points at 68-64.

The Bears finally caught the RedStorm and tied the game at 76-76 and final three minutes went back-and-forth. Junior guard Doug Campbell (Salisbury, NC) stole the inbounds pass and scored a lay-up with 25 seconds left to give the RedStorm an 83-82 lead, but Pikeville's Joshua Samarco calmly drained an 18-foot jumper at the other end to give the lead back to the Bears at 84-83. 

A missed lay-up in traffic by sophomore guard Brad Cubbie (Dayton, OH) in final seconds was all that stood between Rio Grande and its first MSC win. 

Senior guard P.J. Rase (Wheelersburg, OH) put forth a monumental effort in the loss with a game-high 29 points. Rase went 10-of-15 from the field and 6-of-8 from three-point land. Campbell added 17 points and junior forward Meau Jones (Hartwell, GA) chipped in with 12 points to go along with eight rebounds. 

Rio shot the ball extremely well, connecting on 30-of-58 shots (51.7 percent) from the field, including 11-of-20 (55 percent) from three-point land. Rio also nailed 12-of-15 (80 percent) attempts at the free throw line. The RedStorm also out-rebounded a much bigger Pikeville team, 42-32. However, Rio's 27 turnovers proved too much to overcome. 

Pikeville had five players score in double figures led by Andre Thornton's 18 off the bench. Samarco added 14 points while Anthony Smith chipped in 13 points to go along with seven rebounds. Maurice Thomas tossed in 11 points and pulled down seven rebounds and Justin Hicks scored 10 points.

"We had to work for 40 minutes, that's the word that we used going into the game tonight," said Rio Grande head coach Ken French. "We had to work to get our wings open, we had to work to get open in the post, we had to work on the boards and I thought we did a lot of those things well at times."

"We may have played our best basketball of the year," French added. "Pikeville is a very, very good team; they're at the top of our league for a reason."

"If that tells you anything about how well we played, we turned it over 27 times and we lost by one at the buzzer. If you turn it over 27 times against a team in our league, you're probably going to get beat by 30," French said. 

Next up: Rio Grande will host the University of Cumberlands on Saturday afternoon at the Newt Oliver Arena. Tip-off is set for 4 p.m. following the women's game. Stretch Internet will provide play-by-play coverage beginning at 3:45 p.m.