Fort Lewis College and Metro State University-Denver gave fans a show Friday night in Durango. In one of the toughest buildings to play in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, a gritty second-half performance sent the home Skyhawks to another massive win.
Trailing 48-39 early in the second half, the FLC men’s basketball team found an offensive rhythm it had searched for the entire first half. Behind the play of seniors Rasmus Bach and Daniel Hernandez, and a huge night for sophomore forward Riley Farris, the Skyhawks roared from behind to take a 16-point lead with 4 minutes, 15 seconds to play.
Behind hot 3-point shooting late, the Roadrunners raced back into the game and cut the FLC lead down to six twice, but the Skyhawks held off any comeback attempt from the national powerhouse program to secure a 94-88 victory.
FLC (12-2, 8-1 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) is now 9-0 at home this season, and head coach Bob Pietrack moved to 41-1 at home in his three years at FLC, with two of those wins coming against Metro State (7-7, 6-2 RMAC).
“Fort Lewis did what they do, they wore us down,” Metro State head coach Michael Bahl said. “They have tremendous firepower off the bench, coach Pietrack is the best in the business. They’re the pinnacle, not Metro State. Fort Lewis is the pinnacle. We haven’t been to the NCAA tournament in two years. We’re chasing them now, and they’re doing a great job. Coach Pietrack, coach (Daniel Steffensen) and their players, I love those guys.”
Bach got the team going when his side went down nine in the second half. Then Farris came off the bench and caught fire, and Hernandez sliced and diced the Metro State defense.
Hernandez, a 5-foot-8 guard, finished with a game-high 24 points on 6-of-11 shooting. He also went 10-of-11 from the free-throw line. Bahl said Hernandez is “quick on quick” and could score on any level of college basketball.
“After what happened last year, I had one of the worst games of my career. I had zero points,” Hernandez said of last year’s matchup with the Roadrunners in Denver, a lopsided FLC loss. “I just really wanted to come out tonight and prove to myself that I could play with them. My confidence was really good today after I saw the first one go in.”
Farris had 11 points off the bench on 5-of-8 shooting. He played with an uncharacteristic intensity and refused to be stopped. He had five rebounds and one assist, and he had an emphatic two-hand putback dunk that sent the crowd into a frenzy.
“Riley, in my opinion, and coach says this, too, he’s the best offensive player in the RMAC,” Bach said. “He’s 6-10, can dribble and get his shot off any time. He was a little slow in the first half, but we tell him, ‘Riley, stay in it. You’re gonna get your shot.’ You see it. He hits a big 3 in the end, a nice left-hand layup over (Bounama) Keita, not many people can hit that.”
Bach finished with 21 points in one of his best performances of the season. The Preseason RMAC Player of the Year put the team on his back. He shot 6-of-9 from the field and 8-of-11 from the free-throw line. Bach also added five rebounds, five assists and only turned the ball over twice in 36 minutes on the floor.
“We only play Metro once this year,” Bach said. “If at the end of the year if we’re somehow tied, it’s huge to get that win against them. For me, sadly, I will go five years without ever getting a win there, but I can say I beat them on my last time, so that’s a good feeling.”
Cameron Williams was his usual self for the Roadrunners. The star guard finished with 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting. He made only one 3 in the game though on three attempts.
Pietrack said he hopes the Skyhawks don’t run into Williams again.
FLC did a great job in the second half forcing fouls, and that took Jaryn Taylor largely out of the game for the Roadrunners. Taylor had 19 points in the first half but finished with only 20, and Pietrack switched FLC Preseason Defensive Player of the Year Brandon Wilson onto Taylor in the second half and moved Marquel Beasley onto Keita. The moves paid off big.
FLC outrebounded the Roadrunners 27-23, a key stat going into the matchup.
“To outrebound Metro is a huge stat for us,” Pietrack said. “Last year, it was 48-30 on rebounds there and they basically punked us. We couldn’t get the ball. Today, all our guys, all the way down, it was a complete team effort rebounding-wise.”
FLC got big contributions across the board. Kane Martinez, a senior guard, was huge defensively and came up with four big assists. Alex Semadeni had the game-clinching steal, as he tipped a Williams pass to Martinez with Metro State looking to cut the FLC lead to three with less than a minute to play.
Pietrack rode his seniors to the win, and they delivered. Wilson had 10 points and four rebounds. DJ Miles finished with 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting, including 3-of-4 from 3. Beasley, a junior, also had a huge night, with 13 points and four rebounds to go with two assists and three steals.
FLC will face University of Colorado-Colorado Springs at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at home.
“We play a Colorado Springs team tomorrow that has four starters back from a team last year that basically had us dead in the water in the RMAC quarterfinals,” Pietrack said.
“Regardless of records, in this league, records don’t matter. All the games count the same and you need them all.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
