HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Faulkner suffered its first SSAC loss of the season Thursday when it fell 73-71 to William Carey despite a late surge. The Eagles trailed by nine when Ashton Campbell hit a layup with 8:30 remaining in the game.
Jonathan Garcia answered 18 seconds later by turning a
Jerome Thomas pass into a three. The shot sparked a 15-4 Faulkner run that included a 10-0 stretch. Thomas followed the Garcia triple with a layup off a K.J. Rogers pass. Rogers then dished off to
Jordan Johnson who converted a layup with 6:16 to go. Johnson followed that with a pair of free throws to tie the game at 63.
A quick William Carey spurt put the Crusaders up 67-63. With 3:34 to go, Garcia drained a three off a
Maliek Sadler dish to cut it to 67-66. At the 1:42 mark, Rogers connected with Garcia as the latter drilled another three to put the Eagles on top for their only lead of the night. The 69-67 advantage lasted just 23 seconds as Cam Brown answered the Garcia three with one of his own. After a pair of free throws from Brown with 21 seconds left, Johnson hit a tough runner to cut it back to one. A missed free throw with 10 seconds left gave Faulkner one last shot at it. The Eagles called a timeout and drew up a play. A last-second desperation heave proved off the mark as the buzzer sounded.
Faulkner shot 45.6 percent from the floor in the game and hit 41 percent of its attempts from deep. The greatest issue the Eagles faced on the night proved to be rebounding, particularly on the defensive end of the floor. Faulkner allowed Carey to pull down 11 offensive rebounds and parlay those into 10 second-chance points. The Crusaders won the overall rebounding battle 39-34.
Garcia topped all scorers with 21 points while Rogers added 12 to go along with nine rebounds. Johnson finished with nine while Sadlers and
Gabriel Rivera each had eight.
Faulkner (9-2, 2-1 SSAC) returns to action Monday, Dec. 16 when it travels to Life University.
