BLUFFTON, S.C. – Lander made it three wins in a row on Monday night in a thrice-rescheduled game with the Sand Sharks of USC Beaufort, winning 95-82 on the road.
LU improved to 18-5, 13-3 in the Peach Belt Conference to stay 1 ½ games up on second-place Columbus State with four games to play, who are winners of four in a row. USC Beaufort dropped its third straight game and is now 17-8, 11-6.
Greyson Pritzl's 22 points paced the Bearcats as he shot 50% from the floor (6 of 12) and 50% from long-range (3 of 6). The junior from West Allis, Wisconsin, also hit seven free throws in 36 minutes.
Jacob Daniels made the most of his 21 minutes of action, scoring 17 points on 5-of-9 shooting while adding five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Terry Leonard Jr. and
Bobby Crawford Jr. both netted 15 points and
Antewan Webber Jr. had 11. Leonard and
Dylan Canoville tied for the team-lead of six rebounds.
Pritzl, Crawford and Leonard teamed up to score 17 points over the first four minutes of the game to stake the Bearcats to a nine-point lead.
A 12-2 Sand Sharks run soon erased that deficit with 12:27 to go before halftime and gave USCB a 20-19 edge.
Lander responded with an 11-2 run of its own to go back up eight – seven of those coming from the freshman Daniels. Beaufort brought it back down to four, 39-35, with four minutes left; LU owned a 48-41 lead after 20 minutes.
Five Pritzl points jumpstarted the Bearcats in the second half and pushed their advantage into double digits at 55-43.
The Sand Sharks simply would not retreat on their home floor, however, and lowered their deficit to 60-56 with 15 minutes to play.
A pair of buckets from Canoville had the Bearcats back up 66-57 before USCB put together an 8-0 run by the 11-minute mark, suddenly turning it into a one-point game.
Lander never wavered and maintained its lead, albeit never growing higher than seven points over the next five minutes.
The night's final five minutes were something of a slog given the foul situation – this one featured 50 of them in all – but Lander hit 12 of its free-throw attempts late to seal the win.
On that note, the Blue and Gold made a season-high 29 of 36 from the line tonight (80.6%). The Bearcats finished 30 of 59 from the field (50.8%) with six trifectas (42.9%). LU crashed the glass to the tune of a 46-30 rebounding margin while forcing the Sand Sharks into 14 turnovers that were converted into 24 points.
The Bearcats are back in
Finis Horne Arena on Wednesday (Feb. 18) in their penultimate home game of the regular season in a 7:30 p.m. tip versus Georgia Southwestern.
