ST. LOUIS—Missouri Baptist Men's Basketball (12-7, 8-5 AMC) fell victim to red-hot three-point shooting by Lyon College (13-7, 9-4 AMC) on Saturday afternoon at the Petty SRC. The Scots drained 14 of 22 (63.6%) attempts from behind the arc and edged the Spartans 72-68.
Lyon entered the day as the AMC's 11
th ranked offense (out of 12 teams) but you wouldn't have knownit by the Scots start on Saturday. The visitors knocked down their first four three-point attempts to jump out to a 12-4 lead on the Spartans.
Missouri Baptist would battle back and after six first half lead changes eventually went to halftime down by just two (35-33). The Scots finished the first half 10-15 from deep. The Spartans were no slouch offensively either, firing at a 55.6% clip.
If the expectation was for the Scots to come back down to earth in the second half, it didn't happen. Though they attempted just seven threes in the final 20 minutes, Lyon still made four while going 5-9 from midrange and inside the paint. The Spartans, meanwhile, took nearly five minutes in the second half to find their first field goal.
After Lyon stretched the lead out to 11 (61-50) with three minutes left, it was time for Missouri Baptist to make a run. Two threes from
Brendon Hardy and one from
James McKelvin cut the deficit to six.
Two free-throws by
John Yaeger made it a one possession game (68-65) with 36 seconds left but that was as close as the Spartans would come. Lyon sealed the contest at the free-throw line and moved one game ahead of the Missouri Baptist in the AMC standings.
Yaeger led the Spartans in scoring with his second consecutive double-double. The junior posted 19 points and 11 rebounds.
Brendon Hardy (16),
Jahmouri Robinson (10), and
James McKelvin (10) made it a quartet in double figures for Mo. Bap.
With nine games remaining, the Spartans are still squarely in contention in the AMC. At the conclusion of Saturday's conference slate, they sit sixth—one game out of second and two games out of first.
Next on the schedule is an opportunity to get one of those games back on first place. The Spartans will travel to (RV) Park on Thursday for a 7:30 pm tip. The Pirates are 10-3 and tied with CBC for the top spot in the conference.
