By Sirkevius Williams–Morningside men’s basketball rematch against the Jamestown Jimmies for the GPAC championship ended in a second loss for the Mustangs, with a score of 86-84.
The game was tough from start to finish, resulting in over 35 fouls. Jamestown had two players foul out within the last 5 minutes of the game and there was a lot of arm locking, pushing, and shoving throughout.
Both teams shot extremely well, with each team shooting over 50%, but the Jimmies separated themselves at the 3-point line where they racked up 36 points. In comparison, the Mustangs only got 15 points.
Both teams were matching each other bucket for bucket point for point. There was a total of 17 lead changes, but the Mustang’s downfall came at the free-throw line where they missed 10 times.
Nevertheless, it all came down to the last 11.2 seconds of the game with Morningside College junior Tyler Borchers at the free-throw line. Borchers made one of the two free throws forcing Morningside to foul to send the Jimmies to the free-throw line, hoping to get the ball back.
The Jimmies shot their free-throws with 3.6 second left on the clock, making the first one but missing the second one. Morningside capitalized off that miss by getting the rebound and going on the fast break, putting the ball in Morningside College senior Brody Egger’s hands.
Brody Egger tried to put up a layup to tie the game, but he missed and was also fouled. With Egger at the free-throw line the building was dead silent, you couldn’t hear anything but Egger’s heartbeat. Egger then put up his first shot…but missed.
Coach Jim Sykes called a timeout to create a plan to attempt to get the ball back, but the Mustangs failed to do so on the next shot. They went on to foul the Jimmies to get them at the free-throw line; the Jimmies then missed on the following shot but the Mustangs failed to get the rebound.
The Jimmies were crowned 2018/2019 GPAC champions at half court. The Mustangs and the Jimmies will now focus their attention on playing for the National NAIA tournament. The two could teams could possibly face off again within the tournament.
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