Roadrunners fall in Region 16 home opener

Sedalia, Mo. The State Fair Community College (SFCC) Roadrunners men's basketball team lost an 83-64 game to the Three Rivers College Raiders on Saturday, Jan. 10 inside the Fred E. Davis Multipurpose Center. The game was part of the Region 16 schedule for both teams.

Three Rivers jumped out to an 11-4 lead with less than 16 minutes remaining in the opening half. SFCC (9-11, 0-2 in Region 16) fought back to trim the deficit to 27-24 with less than seven minutes remaining in the half.

Three Rivers put together a big run to extend the advantage to 45-26 at halftime. The Roadrunners continued to battle but could not overcome the halftime deficit.

"We had a rough first half," said Roadrunners head coach Jeremy Jackson. "I thought we came out and battled in the second half, we put ourselves in a hole that was hard to dig out of going down by 20 at halftime. That is a big deficit to overcome. We need to be in those games, ready to separate from those teams instead of trying to catch up to them. I'm proud of the way our guys battled in this game. We are going to continue to battle and work hard to get this thing going."

Freshman wing JP Ndong of Germany/Senegal led the team in scoring with 20 points off the bench. Sophomore guard Gavin Q Murphy of Calabasas, Calif. added 13 points. Freshman guard/wing Andin Ashford of Wilkesboro, N.C. also registered 13 points. Freshman wing Da'Ron Hall of Nashville Tenn., pulled down a team-high eight rebounds. Ashford dished out a team-high five assists. Freshman guard Chanler Joseph of West Palm Beach, Fla. led the team in steals with four.

SFCC will return to action on Wednesday, Jan. 14 with another Region 16 contest at Moberly Area Community College. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

David Rohrbach

SFCC Athletics