The Fort Lewis College basketball teams will end a busy 2018 with one last pair of home games Monday for New Year’s Eve.
Northern New Mexico will visit for the second time this season, as the Eagles will face the host Skyhawks at 1 p.m. for the women’s game and 3 p.m. for the men’s game inside Whalen Gymnasium on the FLC campus in Durango.
It will be the first game for the FLC teams since Dec. 16 – a pair of losses to Black Hills State – and FLC has had only four days since returning from the mandated NCAA Division II holiday break to shake off the cobwebs and get ready for the bulk of the season.
The FLC men (5-5, 1-4 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) are eager to erase to the sting of back-to-back overtime losses at home before the break.
“We had four good days and practiced hard up to the break, so we’re ready to play a game,” FLC men’s head coach Bob Pietrack said. “We want badly to get the bad taste out of our mouth from the weekend before break. This game comes at a good time for our program.”
The women’s team has battled illness for the past several weeks, and those issues didn’t go away during the break. A chance to play the Eagles, who FLC beat 92-46 at home Nov. 14, will be a welcome opportunity, though.
“The players want to play in games, especially this time of the year,” FLC women’s coach Jason Flores said. “We get to get on the court, try to get some of the rust out from break and have a game before heading back into conference play. It’s a positive for us.”
Both FLC teams have a bit different identity than the previous meeting against the Eagles in November. Since that 83-60 win, the men have lost junior forward Riley Farris to a shoulder injury, and senior guard Mike Ranson left the program before the final weekend of the fall semester.
The Skyhawks have been limited to 68.75 points per game without Farris, and the last two games went to overtime. FLC will continue to lean heavily on senior forward Marquel Beasley, who has averaged 17.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. Senior Alex Semadeni is second amongst active FLC players with 11.2 points per game to go with a team-high 6.6 rebounds per game, while senior forward Otas Iyekekpolor has averaged 8.6 points and 6.4 rebounds with an RMAC-leading 20 blocked shots.
“I think we’ve improved since November,” Pietrack said. “We have a few new and different pieces without Farris and Ranson. The spirits are high.
“We have got wonderful guys on our team that play together and really care. I’m looking forward to this second semester. I told the guys that we have a lot of great moments to create, and we need to get started re-establishing home court starting (Monday) afternoon.”
The Eagles (7-13) saw Naquwan Solomon go for 25 points and seven rebounds in the last game at FLC. Bryce Simmons also scored 19 points in that game. FLC received 18 points from Beasley, 15 from Iyekekpolor and nine from Semadeni in that matchup.
The FLC women will look to repeat a landslide victory against the Eagles (1-13). Sophomore forward Jordan Carter scored 21 points and grabbed six rebounds the last time the teams met, as the Eagles had no answer for FLC’s interior play with Carter and Alyssa Yocky, who added nine points, five assists and four steals in the last meeting. Twelve FLC women scored in that game.
Shiprock’s Melanie Secody led Northern New Mexico with 11 points but shot only 5-of-16. Kayla Salazar added 10 points and eight rebounds.
More than 1,800 fans were at Whalen to watch the last time the Skyhawks hosted the Eagles on Nike N7 night, and FLC hopes fans from around the Four Corners and Navajo Nation will again travel to Durango for the game.
“Last time, it was such a great atmosphere,” Flores said. “It’s gonna be cold and snowy out, so hopefully we get people in town and give them something to come to during the day. With two afternoon games, it would be great to have people here.”
FLC and Northern New Mexico will actually meet for a third time this season, as the teams scrimmaged in early November in Española. The proximity of the two schools has made the matchup a beneficial game to schedule. It also gives FLC a chance to play before a conference road trip this weekend to Metro State University-Denver and Chadron State College.
“Northern New Mexico, although an NAIA program, is very competitive,” Pietrack said. “In basketball, it’s not about how big a school you are, it’s about how many good players you have. They have good players, play hard and are a good team for us. It’s very hard to schedule for both of our programs due to location, so this allows us to get home games each year and eliminate travel for us.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
If you go
Who:
Northern New Mexico at Fort Lewis College
What:
College basketball
When:
Women at 1 p.m., men at 3 p.m.
Where:
Whalen Gymnasium, Fort Lewis College campus, Durango
Twitter:
@jlivi2
