SAVANNAH, Ga. – The Spring Hill College (SHC) men's basketball team used team season-highs of 27 points and 24 rebounds by senior forward
Chase Shellman of Lexington, Ky. to take an 81-72 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) overtime victory away from conference first-year member the Savannah State University (SSU) Tigers at Tiger Arena on Thursday night.
Spring Hill trailed the Tigers (1-6, 1-3 SIAC East) by a slim 34-33 deficit as Shellman poured in 19 points with 15 rebounds in the first 20 minutes of play alone. While Shellman was thriving on the inside, his teammates struggled to a 2-of-15 half from 3-point range. SSU in the meantime was successful on 5-of-14 of their 3-point attempts, keeping the Tigers in the lead for almost 18 minutes of the first half.
Savannah State came out of the locker room hot and used three consecutive 3-pointers to build a 43-33 bulge with 16 minutes left to play. But after being down by as much as 15 points with 10 minutes to play, SHC would rally to cut the lead to 62-52 at the 7 minute mark off a 3-pointer by freshman guard
Maurice McCullum of Plainfield, Ill. for his first collegiate points.
Suddenly the Badgers would find themselves down just 64-61 with 4:14 on the clock as SHC began to control the interior by finishing layups, drawing fouls and converting free throws. At 2:37, Shellman brought the Badgers to within 64-63 with a layup. McCullum then took away a steal at 2:09 and senior guard
Dwight Harris of Americus, Ga. gave the Badgers their first lead since 2-0 just 40 seconds into the contest by drawing a goaltending call. Sophomore guard
Christian Brandt of Auburn, Ala. turned a Harris rebound into a 3-pointer on the other end as SHC held a 68-64 lead with 1:11 left on the clock.
SSU used two costly Badger turnovers in the final 30 seconds to convert two fast break layups and send the game into overtime tied at 68-68 as Shellman's attempt to beat the buzzer caught the rim and backboard, but would not fall in.
Senior guard
Gresyn Rogers of Casa Grande, Ariz. opened the overtime with a 3-point bucket to grab a 73-70 lead with 3 minutes to play and later took away a steal for a fast break basket to make it 75-70 Badger bulge. Harris finished the scoring by draining four consecutive free throws to ice the Badger victory.
Shellman led both teams in scoring and in rebounding as Rogers added 25 points with five 3-point buckets and Harris posted 13 points with eight rebounds.
As a team, SHC managed to shoot 35.6% (32-90) from the field and 21.1% (8-38) from 3-point range. The Badgers fumbled away 15 turnovers against 12 steals by the Tigers while pulling out a 57-45 margin in rebounding for a healthy 20-4 advantage in second chance points. Spring Hill made 69.2% (9-13) of their free throw attempts.
Savannah State's Adrian Bonds put 23 points in the baskets while Marcus Scott put 14 notches on the scoreboard. The Tigers shot 41.5% (27-65) overall and 31.3% (10-32) from 3-point distance while committing 23 turnovers to eight steals by the Badgers, resulting in a 19-17 advantage in points off turnovers for Savannah State. SSU would rattle home just 61.5% (8-13) of their free throw attempts.
The Tigers moved from NCAA Division I membership to join Division II and the SIAC following the 2018-19 season.
Wrapping up the 2019 portion of their schedule, the Badgers (2-9, 1-3 SIAC West) next face the 12
th-ranked University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Chargers (8-2) in the opening game of the 2019 Rocket City Classic at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville on Saturday beginning at noon.
