In a few plays, Fort Lewis College men’s basketball guard Tru Allen went from looking like a freshman to the fifth year leader he is as the Skyhawks beat University of Colorado Colorado Springs 87-84 Saturday afternoon.

Allen made a terrible mistake with the Skyhawks down 82-81 with 37 seconds left. He received a pass on the left wing from senior guard Biko Johnson, attacked the UCCS closeout and then threw a sloppy behind-the-back pass to Johnson’s feet that went out of bounds.

Instead of hanging his head, Allen and the Skyhawks continued to fight. On the ensuing UCCS inbound, the Skyhawks went into their full-court press and redshirt freshman guard Stewart Erhart stole the ball on a poor UCCS pass. Allen got the ball back, and despite being 1-8 from the field at the time, attacked the basket with confidence and finished through contact to put FLC up 83-82 with 12 seconds left.

Allen wasn’t done. He quickly got off the floor, intercepted the UCCS inbounds pass and flipped the ball up with one hand to put FLC up 85-82 with 11 seconds left. After FLC was down 15 in the second half, the Skyhawks hung on for the 87-84 victory thanks to some defensive heroics.

“It's not always going to look pretty but good teams that compete and have that kind of effort and grit, they find ways to win games when it's not going their way,” FLC head coach Jordan Mast said. “That was a championship mentality in a game that could have easily gone their way. We could have folded and said, ‘Oh, we didn't have it tonight,’ but that's not what we did. So credit to the guys.”

FLC improved to 13-6 overall and 7-3 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference after it shot 48% from the field, 42% from 3-point range and 50% from the free-throw line. The Skyhawks have won four consecutive games and haven’t lost a game in regulation since Dec. 5.

Senior forward Chuol Deng led the Skyhawks with an incredible offensive performance; he finished with a season-high 30 points on 12-20 shooting from the field, 4-7 from 3-point range and 2-2 from the free-throw line. Johnson also played very well and finished with 26 points on 9-15 shooting from the field, 6-9 from 3-point range and 2-4 from the free-throw line.

Deng and Johnson were the lone Skyhawks in double-figures.

“The good part is they played well and kept us in it,” Mast said about Deng and Johnson. “The bad part is we were relying on individual play … we've got talented guys that can make plays, but we've got to get team shots. In the second half, the ball moved around a lot more, and other guys got involved and made plays … But credit to them, they had some big shots, made some big plays at the right times and kept us in it when we weren't playing well.”

UCCS fell to 11-7 overall and 5-5 in the RMAC after it shot 56% from the field, 38% from 3-point range and 88% from the free-throw line.

Derek Pranger led the Mountain Lions with 28 points on 10-15 shooting from the field, 3-7 from 3-point range and 5-7 from the free-throw line.

UCCS jumped out to an 11-1 lead four minutes into the game. The Mountain Lions’ Wiliam Becker leads the RMAC in rebounds per game and blocks per game and its easy to see why. At 6-foot-9-inches, Becker has a lot of length and blocked two shots in the first four minutes in the middle of UCCS’ 2-3 zone.

FLC struggled to get open looks early and the Mountain Lions penetrated against FLC easily.

The Skyhawks made a run to get back into the game with some steals that led to transition buckets; Johnson had some great plays in the half-court to cut UCCS’ lead to 23-20 with eight minutes left in the half.

But UCCS built its lead back up to end the first half with more penetration that led to layups or free-throw attempts. Despite Deng’s 17 first-half points and Johnson’s 16 first-half points, FLC trailed 44-35 at halftime. The Mountain Lions shot 68% in the first half.

“They actually handled our pressure well, even though we turned them over 10 times in the half,” Mast said. “The times they broke it, they were scoring out of it. So it wasn't like they broke our pressure and then we were defending well; they were getting advantage situations and making us pay for not having great pressure and getting back on defense. So our initial pressure was fine, but when they broke it, we weren't doing a great job hustling back and making things tough.”

The Skyhawks were stagnant on offense to start the second half and UCCS went up 57-42 with 16:09 left. At the under-16 timeout, Mast told his team it was a make-or-break point in the game: If they kept playing like they were they would lose by 20.

FLC flipped the switch after the timeout and went on a 15-3 run to get back into the game. The Skyhawks took their first lead of the second half with a free throw by Deng to make it 72-71 with 5:52 left.

The script flipped in the second half as FLC shot 57% from the field compared to 39% in the first half.

FLC hits the road on Thursday to play at Division II’s No. 7 team Colorado School of Mines at 7:30 p.m.

bkelly@durangoherald.com