COMMERCE, Texas – Junior Will Chayer (Corpus Christi, Texas) and freshman Marcus Jones (Cheneyville, La.) both scored in double figures, but the Texas A&M-Kingsville men's basketball team ended up on the short end of a 77-56 decision against the Texas A&M-Commerce Lions in Lone Star Conference action at the Field House in Commerce, Texas on Thursday night.
TAMUK's loss puts them at 10-5 for the season and 1-3 in LSC competition. The Lions improve to 5-3 in league play and 13-4 for the year.
"It was a difficult night," said coach Johnny Estelle. "When you don't have all your players or starters it changes the dimension of the game in many ways. But give TAMUC credit for the win tonight. They played extremely well and physical collectively.
"We could not get anything going consistently on our end of the floor and they took advantage of our mistakes. I appreciate how hard our players played and the way the competed under the circumstances."
Chayer's 12 points were a team-high and marked the third time in the last five games he's scored in double figures. He also tied for the team lead with five rebounds. Jones finished the evening with 11 points.
The Lions jumped out to a 14-6 lead in the opening minutes, before a pair of Sammy Brooks (Dallas, Texas) triples brought the Hogs to within two.
TAMUK held its deficit to one possession until five consecutive Lion points made the score 25-17 and A&M-C soon took off on an 11-0 run to increase their lead to 17. They used another run late in the period to take a 44-25 lead into halftime. The Lions shot 55 percent from the floor in the first half, including 9-of-16 on threes.
A&M-C upped its lead to 21 points early in the final period, but the Hogs responded with their best stretch of the night, cobbling together a 14-2 run that included two Derek Luna (Palmview, Texas) triples and a three-point play by Chayer. Unfortunately, for TAMUK, the Lions answered by scoring 12 of the next 14 points and the Javelinas were unable to regain the momentum after that.
The next contest on the calendar for the Hogs is on Saturday, when they'll play UT Tyler in a game scheduled to start 4 p.m. Fans can keep up with Javelina men's basketball throughout the season by following @JavelinaMBB on Twitter and Instagram, liking Texas A&M University-Kingsville Men's Basketball on Facebook, subscribing to the Javelina Athletics YouTube channel and visiting Javelinaathletics.com.
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