Men’s Basketball: Saints suffer tough loss to NDNU

December 5, 2006

Lacey, WA – Saint Martin’s men’s basketball battled the entire game with Notre Dame de Namur but couldn’t hold on at the end and fell to the Argonauts 62-56 Tuesday night at the SMU Pavilion.

“With as many guys as we have playing with injuries, I’m proud of the heart they’re showing. I will take our toughness any day. A lot of teams would have folded and our kids didn’t do that,” said head coach Keith Cooper. “NDNU is a good team; they are 4-1 for a reason, but we battled right with them. They hit some big shots and we missed some big shots.”

The game was tight the whole way through with neither team going up by more then seven at any point. Though the Argonauts out rebounded the Saints 26-17 in the first half, SMU was able to keep themselves in the game. With the score tied 29-29 and time winding down NDNU hit a jumper at the last second to go into halftime up 31-29.

The second half saw the Argonauts extend their lead to seven before the Saints battle back and evened the score on two made free throws by Brendan Campbell. SMU was down 56-54 with just over 2 minutes left in the game. With 1:57 on the clock, the Saints tied it up for the final time on a layin by Campbell. NDNU hit a jumper and two from the line to go up by four. The following combination of a missed three by the Saints and two made free throws by the Argonauts put NDNU up by six with only nine seconds left; a deficit SMU just couldn’t overcome.

Jake Linton had a game high 16 points six assists. Stephon Harris added 14 points and Brendan Campbell pulled down eight boards. NDNU was led by Stephen Chang with 12 points. SMU out shot the Argonauts 38 percent to 32 percent but NDNU controlled the boards pulling down 47 to the Saints’ 34.

“Jake played well, he took some good shots. Matt (Hargrave) did a good job of boxing out. He got some big boards and kept their big guy out,” said Cooper. “We defended well; we just couldn’t finish on the rebound. We held them to 32% from the field but they got some big offensive boards.”

The Saints are back on the road this weekend as they travel to California to take part in the Sonoma State Tournament where they will face Sonoma State and Cal State Monterey Bay.