GEORGETOWN, Texas – The Southwestern University men's basketball team gave a valiant effort against one of the hottest teams in the NCAA Division III landscape, but unfortunately wore down in the second half and falling to the University of St. Thomas 68-53.
St. Thomas (9-1, 4-0 SCAC) was most recently ranked as high as 21st in the country according to D3Hoops.com as of Dec. 11, 2022.
Southwestern (3-9, 1-3 SCAC) was the one, however, that came out of the pregame warmups with the most energy and built a 9-3 lead just 4:30 into the contest thanks in large part to the play of Sam Lacy, who assisted Jacob Hester's three pointer to go up 5-0 then made back-to-back jump shots to go up 9-3.
The Pirates would stretch their lead out to 13-5 when Preston Hannah converted a jumper before Marion Williams' jumper for St. Thomas ended a 3:29 scoring drought for the Celts.
Back-to-back long-range threes from Josh Jones and Leo Toussaint had all the momentum on the Pirates' side with the scoreboard reading 19-7 with 11:05 left in the first half in favor of Southwestern.
St. Thomas would cut the score down to 22-17 with 7:01 left before halftime on a Freddie Ricks layup, but two possessions later Lacy would collect a steal just before Hester drained a trey to put the Pirates up 25-17.
Neither team could convert over the next few possessions down the court until the 4:30 mark of the first half saw Brock Luechtefeld convert a jumper off an assist from Luke Hatcher to put the Pirates up 27-17.
Unfortunately for the Southwestern faithful on hand inside the Robertson Center, the Pirates would run ashore and go on a 3:30 scoring drought as the Celts would eventually take the lead late in first half.
After Andrew Adebo's three put the Celts up 30-27 with 1:16 left in the half, Hannah converted a pair of free throws to end the scoring drought before a Calvin Williams IV layup gave St. Thomas a 32-29 halftime lead.
Southwestern was well withing striking distance midway through the second half as Toussaint's three with 10:54 left in the game off a Shobby Enakpene assist cut the deficit down to 42-39.
A 10-0 run for St. Thomas over the next two minutes all but put the game away as the Pirates could not recover. The Celts would slowly pull away as Southwestern ran out of steam having battled tough through games against stiff competition on back-to-back nights within the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
St. Thomas' Williams IV would lead all scorers with 24 points.
Southwestern was led by Hannah's 12 points off the bench to go along with three rebounds and an assist. Luechtefeld also chipped in 10 points, four rebounds and a block.
The one stat that the Pirates will have to work on is offensive rebounding as they collected just three on the entire game compared to St, Thomas'27 defensive rebounds.
UP NEXT
The Pirates will use the next couple days to prepare for the 2022 Leslie Robinson Christmas Classic at Trinity University on Dec. 20-21 when they take on Geneva College out of Beaver Falls, Penn., and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Tip off against Geneva on Tue., Dec. 20 is at 1 p.m. CST while tip is at 5 p.m. CST the following day against Stevens Point.