Sports
MIDDLETOWN — It was a game with league implications, and when it counted most, the Miami University Middletown men’s basketball team came up big.
MUM took game one of two this season with Ohio State University Lima 81-73 on Wednesday night in the C. Eugene Bennett Rec Center. The win gives the ThunderHawks a two-game lead over the Barons in the Ohio Regional Campus Conference.
“This feels good,” said 6-foot-6 sophomore Lamar Mallory, who led MUM with game-highs in points with 18 and rebounds with 17. “They battled back, but we hung in there.”
Mallory was just one of the reasons MUM (11-4, 7-0 ORCC) was able to pull this one out.
Lima (8-7, 5-2 ORCC) had as much quickness as the ThunderHawks, and played just as tight on defense, but when MUM freshman Don Houser drained a 3-pointer from the near corner with 1:03 left in the game to stretch his teams’ lead back to five points, it seemed to be the breathing room they needed.
“That was a huge 3-pointer,” MUM coach Bob Nocton said. “We really didn’t execute that play, but we found a shooter in the corner and he got it off just in time to avoid a shot clock violation.
“It gave us the separation we needed,” he continued. “Then they had to foul us.”
Enter freshman Jack Jackson, who then drained 5-of-6 free throws in the final 25 seconds to seal the game. He totaled 11 points and seven rebounds coming off the bench.
Houser finished with 12 points, as did Johntay Farmer, and Shawn Robinson totaled 13 points in the win.
Lima led at numerous times throughout the matchup, but its last lead was 54-52 with 10:50 to go in the second half.
On the next play, Robinson hit one of his two 3-pointers, and then after getting a turnover on the other end, Jackson converted a two-point play on the fast break when Farmer used his hand like a tennis racket to swat a pass in midair toward Jackson for the lay up.
“We gambled too much,” Lima coach Quincy Simpson said. “They outran us in getting a lot of 2-on-1’s and 3-on-1’s because we didn’t get back on defense.”
Simpson was not happy about getting outrebounded either. MUM won that stat going away, 48-33.
“We’ve been struggling on rebounding all year,” Simpson said. “We work on it for 45 minutes every day and we still have a hard time.
“But the good thing is we will play each other again,” he continued. “So we’ll see then how much we’ve improved.”
Lima was led by Marlon Hutchins with 17 points. Lemar Pughsley had 16 and Brady Schroeder added 11.
The two teams will meet again on Jan. 29 in Lima.
Contact this reporter at (5130 705-2852, or sweaver@coxohio.com.
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