Box Score Tigerville, S.C. – North Greenville men’s basketball snapped a six game losing skid on Saturday night with a thrilling 62-56 defeat of Emmanuel College.
The Crusaders trailed by as many as 12-points on Saturday when the Lions took a 38-26 lead with 16:24 left in the game. North Greenville’s offense responded with a 14-2 run which evened the score at 40-40 with 11:37 left in the game. Jai Jenks put the finishing touches on the comeback with a put-back off of a Daniel Burchette miss.
The Crusaders would take control after the two teams traded scores on the next few possessions. Butchette and Justin Dotson would score on consecutive possessions to give NGU a six-point lead with 4:45 left in the game. An Emmanuel three pointer cut North Greenville’s lead to just three points but Roderick Howell would give NGU its biggest lead of the game with a pair of layups paired with a Dotson free throw which made the score 57-49 with 2:42 left.
The Lions refused to quit though, and whittled NGU’s eight-point lead to three points with 51-seconds left. The Crusaders would get the chance to put the game away though with 19-seconds left as Howell was fouled underneath the basket. He would knock down one of two to extend the lead to three. Howell would then come up big on the defensive end coming up with a lose ball after a steal by Tommy Wade as NGU melted the clock down for their second Conference Carolinas win.
Seven players scored for the Crusaders on Saturday including Danielle Burchette who led the team with 16-points. Justin Dotson finished the night with 14 and a team high four assists. Roderick Howell finished with nine points, six of which came in the crucial closing minutes of the game while Tommy Wade had eight points and a game high five steals.
The Crusaders improved to 7-13 overall and 2-11 in Conference Carolinas play. NGU will host Southern Wesleyan on February 1st at 7:30pm.
