MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Garrett Sanderson played over two screens and contested Ladarius Carter's game-tying attempt at the buzzer to seal the SSAC Men's Basketball Championship with a 67-64 win over No. 14 Stillman Saturday night.

The sequence came immediately following Jordan Hamlette stepping to the line with 18 seconds left and his team up 65-64. Hamlette knocked down both ends of the one-and-one to move the lead to three as Stillman head coach John Teasley took a timeout to draw up the game's final play. 

Stillman had previously taken a lead on a Carter three-pointer that made it 18-17 with 9:56 to play in the first half. That proved the final lead of the game for the Tigers. Coincidentally, Mobile had its final lead over Faulkner at 18-17 with 10:27 to play in the first half during the Friday night semifinal game. The Tiger lead lasted until the 8:49 mark when C.J. Williamson dropped a shot to put Faulkner up 19-18 before connecting on the bonus free throw. The sequence set off a 20-2 Faulkner run that put Stillman down 37-20 before it began a charge of its own just before half. The Tigers finished the period on a 7-2 run that left them down 12 at the break. 

The second half only continued the Stillman comeback effort. The Tigers scored the first six points of the half and cut the deficit to six before Faulkner ran it back to double figures. 
Stillman started its biggest push of the game with 16:18 to play when it put together a 14-3 run that gut the score to 48-47 with 10:54 to go. Stillman had a chance to tie it but missed the and-1 free throw attempt. 

Faulkner then normalized things on the offensive end as Austin Rogers knocked down two free throws before parlaying a Williamson dish into a bucket. He then dropped a dime to Williamson with 9:47 to play to move the lead back to seven.

The Eagles got the lead as high as eight on a Hamlette bucket with 3:05 to go before a Derrick Finklea three and a Virgil Field free throw cut it to four. After two Hamlette free throws with 1:07 to go, Davis dropped another shot to move it to 65-61 and set up the game's final sequence. 

Faulkner shot 42 percent from the field in the game and 35 percent from three. Hamlette finished with 21 points. Rogers scored 17 with six rebounds. Williamson had 11 points, 12 rebounds and three assists.

The conference tournament championship is the first for Faulkner since the 2015-2016 season. The victory also saw Faulkner cutting down the nets exactly one year to the day after the Eagles did so following a win over Dalton State that clinched the 2019-2020 SSAC regular season crown.

Faulkner (25-2) moves on to the NAIA National Tournament Opening Round. The brackets for the event are set to be announced Thursday. The NAIA named Faulkner University as one of eight host sties for the men's event.