Royals Begin Season 2-1
The Lake Region State College Men's Basketball program jumped out to a 2-1 start at the Buster Gillis Mondak Pre-Conference Tournament.
Friday night, they opened up with defending MonDak & Region Champions North Dakota State College of Science. The Royals jumped out to an early 45-37 lead in the first half. They never relented in the 2nd half, winning 95-84. Poet Davis led the scoring with 32 points 2rebs 4ast 5stls. Bronson Chambers filled up the stat book with 15pts 13rebs and 7asts.
On Saturday night in the semi finals, it was a race to 100 against the MCC Pioneers. The Royals got off to a slow start to begin the game and found themselves down by 21 midway through the first half. Despite their best efforts in the 2nd half the Royals could not get over the hump. They cut it to 2 at one point but back to back turnovers killed the run. The final Miles 104 LRSC 98. Five Royals finished in double figures. Poet Davis had 27pts 9rebs 5ast. Ginuwine Tropnas had 19pts 9rebs. Akok Ajou had 16pts to go with 9rebs and 4asts. Ron Lee gave a spark off the bench with 11pts 2rebs 3ast 3stls.
In the 3rd place game Sunday, the Royals got out to a big 68-52 lead in the first half. They shot 67% from the field and 78% from 3 in the first half, shooting 7-9 behind the arc. LRSC made it interesting in the 2nd half, allowing WSC to climb back into it cutting the big Royals lead. With 1.3 seconds to go Poet Davis hit a contested 3 to seal the win for Lake Region. He would have 26pts 6rebs 6ast 2stls. Four other Royals would hit double figures, Bronson Chambers had 21pts 3rebs and 7asts. The two bigs Akok Ajou, 18pts 6rebs, Ginuwine Tropnas 14pts 4rebs, would have another great day. Ron Lee, 10pts and Mat Mudingay 6pts would provide a spark off the bench for LRSC.
Head Coach Jared Marshall had this to say about the weekend, "I am proud of how we came out of the weekend 2-1. I wish we could have the 1st 10 minutes back from the Miles CC game but was proud of how hard we fought to get back into that game. Our offense is a big strength for us right now. If we can dial it in on the defensive end a little bit more we are going to find a lot of success this year."
Offense is a big strength for the Royals right now. They are currently 2nd in the nation in total points with 302, averaging 100.7ppg which is good for 19th in the country. You can see the high scoring Royals this weekend at the sportscenter when they host the Spirit Lake Casino and Resort Classic.