Nathan Tucker
nrtucker@lc.edu
All good things must come to an end, and on January 15, the Trailblazer men’s six game winning streak came to an abrupt one. The Blue Storm of SWIC put a halt to L&C’s winning ways with an emphatic 76-62 victory, which pushed the Trailblazers back to a still quite respectable 11-4 record.
“Credit goes to SWIC,” Said Lewis and Clark assistant coach Kavon Lacey, following the loss. “They just wanted it more than us. When you face a team like SWIC that guards tough, has strong guys, can rebound and get after the ball, you can’t play soft, and that’s how we played tonight.”
“We set ourselves up for it.” Lacey noted, “The last two games (wins against Rend Lake and Lincoln Land) we didn’t play our best basketball. That carried over.”
The Trailblazers had a slow first half on the offensive end, and on the defensive end, had trouble with rebounding, notably, trouble keeping SWIC’s big men off the glass and keeping them from converting easy second-chance looks.
“Our overall aggressiveness, offensively and defensively we were just passive.” Lacey stated postgame. “We were playing on our heels the entire game. And rebounding, If you look at the (stats) sheet, I haven’t looked at the statistics but they probably tripled our total, probably doubled our offensive rebounding and tripled overall. That’s the game right there, if (SWIC’s) 55 and 44 don’t get half of their offensive rebounds, it’s still a one possession, two possession game.”
The Trailblazers’ win streak may be gone, but now all focus turns to a huge matchup this Saturday with the #9 team in all of junior college basketball, Vincennes University, coming into Godfrey for an afternoon clash. “(the loss to SWIC) is a wake up call. We got a top team in the country coming in this weekend, this is a wake up call, if we don’t get our act together it could happen all over again.”
When asked what the L&C team needs to do to beat Vincennes, Kavon Lacey pointed to effort, primarily on the practice floor. “Gotta get on the practice floor and correct some of the things that we did. Overall, we just gotta play hard, that’s what it is.”
Saturday’s contest with Vincennes is at 3 pm, and will be the ultimate measuring stick for coach Lacey and head coach Doug Stotler, as well as all the Trailblazers. For complete roster and schedule information on men’s basketball and all Trailblazer sports, visit LC.edu/Athletics.
