Eagle men lose heartbreaker in OT
After ringing in the New Year with a 93-86 win over Adams State University, Friday, at the Chicoine Center, the Chadron State men’s basketball team was just seconds away from another home win, Saturday, but a buzzer beating shot ultimately led to a 100-88 overtime win for Fort Lewis College.
Down 81-78, with just seconds remaining in Saturday’s game, Fort Lewis guard Alex Semadeni, senior of Fort Collins, Colorado, collected an offensive rebound, then ran to the northwest corner of the court just beyond the 3-point arc, spun, and sent a long shot toward the net.
With the buzzer sounding in the background the ball slid neatly through the net, sending the game into overtime and setting momentum firmly in the Skyhawks’ favor.
The timely 3-pointer was Semadeni’s third in just the final 32 seconds of regulation. The Fort Lewis senior scored a career-high 37 points in the game, sinking five 3-pointers while shooting 78-percent from the field and collecting 12 points on 14 free throws.
“He played with an edge tonight,” Chadron Head Coach Houston Reed said of Semadeni. “They have a player that’s been in their program and he really made some big shots and some big time plays.”
In overtime Chadron would hit just two of nine shots from the field while surrendering 19 points to the Skyhawks.
Chadron trailed Fort Lewis 40-30 heading into the fourth quarter, but chipped away at the Skyhawk lead until Adoum Mbang senior of Yaounde, Cameroon, was fouled on a layup and gave the Eagles a 68-67 lead on the 3-point play late in the quarter.
Mbang led the Eagles in scoring against the Skyhawks with a 21 point night. Chadron’s Diontae Champion, senior of Pearl, Mississippi, shot 70-percent on the night for 19 points and Colby Jackson, junior of Las Vegas, Nevada, had 14.
The previous day saw a battle between the RMAC’s third ranked offense in Adams State, and the third ranked defense in Chadron, which played out to a 41-41 tie at the half before opening up in favor of the Eagles.
Chadron got on the board first in the second and never trailed through the final half.
“I thought that we competed for 40 minutes (against Adams State),” Reed said, “It wasn’t all pretty, but I thought that we competed.”
“Adams is a team that can really score the basketball,” Reed continued, “and teams that can usually score the basketball struggle to guard the basketball. We’re trying to be a team that’s a little bit of both. We found some matchups that we took advantage of and we shot at a good percentage.”
Chadron shot 51.8-percent against the Grizzlies, their highest this season.
Champion had a big game scoring 16 points, grabbing 12 rebounds, and flirted with becoming the second Eagle to ever achieve a triple-double by adding eight assists.
Against the Grizzlies, the Eagles were led in scoring by Jackson and Mbang who both hit the 20-point mark.
“Adoum (Mbang) has really come along,” Coach Reed said following the senior’s second 20-point night, Saturday. “He’s gotten to be a guy we can dump the ball down into the block towards the end of the game and he can give us some production down there.”
The now 6-7 Eagles travel to face Westminster, Friday.