SFCC Roadrunners Regain Lead to Win Homecoming

The Roadrunners sent a large Homecoming and Sophomore Night crowd home happy with a 71-67 win over the Mineral Area College Cardinals Saturday night at the Fred E. Davis Multipurpose Center.

SFCC (19-9, 4-4 in Region 16, 6-4 in the Missouri Community College Athletic Conference) started the game playing well on both ends of the floor and took a 41-24 lead late in the opening half. The 17-point lead was the largest held by either team in the contest. SFCC led the game 41-25 at halftime.

"We played with a lot of confidence early on in the game," said Brown. "We got some good shots at the basket. When Mineral Area stepped up their game and our offense was struggling, we made adjustments. Our guys are resilient, and I'm really proud of them."

The Cardinals fought their way back into the contest and took a 57-52 lead with about six minutes remaining in the game. Mineral Area would extend their advantage to nine points. SFCC used clutch shooting and strong defense to retake control of the game. Scott-Grayson completed an old-fashioned three-point play to tie the score at 65 with less than two minutes left in the game.

"Late in the game, Dominic Fragola came off the bench to hit a key three-point shot for us," said Brown. We put Christian Brown into the game, and he hit another three-pointer to prime the pump."

Freshman guard/forward LePear Toles led the team in scoring with 12 points, pulled down a team-high nine rebounds and led in steals with two. Freshman guard Tim Leavell contributed 11 points. Walker dished out a team-high 10 assists in the game.

Coach Brown is very proud of his sophomores and freshman academic qualifiers who will move on at the end of the year. They were honored at halftime of the women's contest.

"Isaac Bassey did a good job, especially in the first half," said Brown. "Christian hit a couple of big three-point shots. LePear had a good game and played a ton of minutes for us. A.J. did a good job as well. Derrick, as always, was a strong defender; everyone played their role tonight. I'm really proud of them."

SFCC opens the Region 16 championship as the number two seed and will, again, take on MAC as the third-seed in the semifinal round at 8 p.m. March 1 at Jason Gym on the Lincoln University campus in Jefferson City.

David Rohrbach, SFCC Athletics

Editor's note: You can listen to that game live from Jeff City on KSIS 1050 AM Thursday night at 8 p.m. and also listen online at KSISradio.com. The winner will play in the Region XVI championship game against the winner of the #1 seed, Moberly Area CC (26-4) - vs. #4 MSU-West Plains/#5 Three Rivers game. The championship game will be played Saturday March 3 at 3 p.m.