MONTGOMERY, Ala. – In a gritty contest marked by physical play, Faulkner was able to gut out a 67-62 victory over Tennessee Southern Thursday night. The Eagles muscled out the SSAC opener on a night in which they won each of the ancillary scoring categories while shooting 55 percent from the floor in the second half.
Faulkner took points in the paint (44-28), bench points (32-18), fastbreak points (16-6) and second-chance points (7-2). However, no singular scoring category was more impactful than the Eagles' 29-10 advantage in points off turnovers. Faulkner used an aggressive defense to inflate that margin, forcing 25 turnovers in the contest including 13 steals.
The Eagles seemed poised to put the game away with 7:53 left when
Jerome Thomas made a jumper to put his squad up 54-44. In a little more than a minute, UTS mounted a 7-0 run to narrow the game to one possession. With 5:16 to play, Vito Vujovic drained a three to cut it to 56-54. Despite multiple opportunities, the Firehawks could get no closer.
Gabriel Rivera turned a
Jeffrey Selden dish into a layup with 3:18 to go and then repeated the feat off a
Joe Webster dime at the 2:11 mark. Faulkner made seven free throw attempts in the final 90 seconds to ice the win.
The balanced scoring effort saw
Jonathan Garcia lead the way with 14 points. Rivera finished with 13 points while
Maliek Sadler had 12.
KJ Rogers added 12 points to go along with four steals.
Faulkner (5-0, 1-0 SSAC) travels to Blue Mountain Christian Saturday before returning home Tuesday to host Middle Georgia State.
