Roadrunners battle but fall in opener

Sedalia, Mo- The State Fair Community College (SFCC) Roadrunners basketball team lost a hard-fought 78-71 game to Hutchinson Community College in the opening round of the McDonald's Class inside the Fred E. Davis Multipurpose Center on Friday, Oct.31. Hutchinson is currently receiving votes in the NJCAA Division I Men's Basketball Rankings

SFCC led the back-and-forth contest 17-9 with less than 12 minutes to go in the first half. The game featured four lead changes and three ties. Hutchinson slowly began to chip away at the SFCC advantage. Hutchinson came all the way back to take a 40-36 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Hutchinson pushed the advantage to 62-51 in the second half. The 11-point lead was the largest held by either team in the contest. SFCC refused to go away in front of the home crowd.

"We make our practices harder than games in our opinion," said Roadrunners head coach Jeremy Jackson. "We want to come out to get stops on the defensive end of the floor. We think our defense leads to our offense."

SFCC fought all the way back to take a one-point advantage on a basket from sophomore forward Ibraheem Sylla 67-66 with one minute and 50 seconds to go in the game.

Hutchinson made just enough plays in the final moments to secure the victory.

"We just needed to execute a little better," said Jackson.

Freshman guard Nate Wilder led SFCC in scoring with 17 points. Wilder also knocked down 10 of his 12 free-throw attempts. Sylla registered a double-double with a team-high 12 rebounds and 11 points. He also led the team with blocked shots with two. Freshman guard/wing Andin Ashford also pitched in with 10 points, along with sophomore wing Jai'Kori Phillps. Phillps also registered a team-high four steals. Freshman guard Damian Dirden dished out a team-high six assists in the game.

"We want to share the basketball," said Jackson. "We have a lot of talented kids. We want to have a lot of different options within our offense."

The Roadrunners will return to action on Saturday, Nov. 1 in the final game of the McDonald's Classic against the Central Methodist University Junior Varsity. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. inside the Fred E. Davis Multipurpose Center.

David Rohrbach

SFCC Athletics