Raiders nab road win at Concordia in battle of top-15 teams
PORTLAND, Ore. – In a back-and-forth battle between ranked teams, No. 15 Southern Oregon held off No. 13 Concordia 78-75 in overtime Friday night at Cavalier Gymnasium.
The squads fought to a draw in regulation, then narrowly avoided a second extra period as CU's
Tyler Velasquez (Colorado Springs, Colo./Doherty H.S.)'s half-court buzzer-beater went just left of the basket.
It was a game of runs, as neither Southern Oregon (10-1, 1-0 CCC) nor Concordia (8-2, 0-1 CCC) could effectively put the other away. The Cavaliers opened up a 17-10 lead out of the gate on a
Kory Kirwan (Hillsboro, Ore./Glencoe H.S.) layup, but the visitors regrouped with a 22-13 spree down the stretch to take a 32-30 lead into the half.
Contributing to the close affair was poor free throw shooting on both sides (both teams shot 50 percent) and a combined 42 turnovers in the midst of frantic, sometimes wild action.
Joel Spear led SOU with a scorching shooting performance, hitting 9 of 11 shots from the field—including 4 of 4 from 3-point range—en route to a season-high 22 points. Spear's final bucket of regulation, a layup with 41 seconds left, pushed the game into overtime, but the junior from Australia continued on to score the first five points of the extra session to put the Raiders in a favorable position for the road win.
Eric Thompson, Southern Oregon's scoring leader and the CCC coaches' preseason Conference Player of the Year, was held to just eight points on 3 of 8 shooting. However, the rest of the Raiders were able to pick up the slack, with Jordan West (15 points) and Tim Weber (14) joining Spear in double figures.
Thomas Pierce (Gary, Ind./Roosevelt H.S.) was the high man for Concordia with 20 points and 12 rebounds.
Concordia also got contributions from across the roster, as starters Pierce,
Tyler Velasquez (Colorado Springs, Colo./Doherty H.S.) (12), Justin Searle (11) and
Anthony Holton (Portland, Ore./Sunset H.S.) (11) all reached double digits in scoring.
Kory Kirwan (Hillsboro, Ore./Glencoe H.S.) also had 13 off the bench for the Cavaliers.
In addition to his scoring touch, Velasquez added five rebounds and five steals.
For the game, SOU outshot Concordia 52 percent to 42 from the floor and 41 percent to 23 percent from 3-point range, making up for the Cavs' 47-30 advantage on the boards.
Concordia next takes the court at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 6 at home against Oregon Tech while Southern Oregon will remain in Portland to play at Warner Pacific College.
Postgame Quotes – Head Coach
Brad Barbarick:
On the result – "It's disappointing to fight back [and then lose]… we didn't make some plays."
On defensive effort – "Give them credit for having a lot of guys step up tonight… [Spear] had a season high, made as many 3s as he had all season."
On the offense – "We got a little stagnant against the zone, we got some good looks that just didn't fall."