Riley Farris scored 14 points in the opening 6 minutes, 1 second of the game Saturday night. With nothing else happening around him, the Skyhawks didn’t have enough offense to win a tough road game.
The Fort Lewis College men’s basketball team fell 81-70 against Black Hills State in Spearfish, South Dakota. Farris finished with 24 points after his hot start, but it was freshman forward Joel Scott of Black Hills State (5-5, 3-2 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) who stole the show. The 6-foot-7, 215-pound forward out of Lewis-Palmer High School in Colorado Springs had 25 points, seven rebounds – all offensive – to go with three assists and two blocked shots.
“He’s a very good player, very strong, and he kicked our tails pretty good on the boards,” FLC head coach Bob Pietrack said of Scott. “Seven offensive rebounds, and most of them turned into points. We weren’t very tough tonight.”
Tyler Oliver added 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Yellow Jackets, while Trey Whitley scored 10 points.
Logan Hokanson and Will Wittman each had 11 points in the loss for FLC (8-2, 2-2 RMAC). Wittman had a team-high seven rebounds, while Hokanson added three steals and two assists. Freshman guard Akuel Kot, who came into the weekend having averaged 16 points per game, was held to eight points and only 12 points on the two-game road trip that FLC split in South Dakota.
It was a brutal shooting night for FLC at only 39.6% compared to 48.4% for the Yellow Jackets.
“I think it was more their defense,” Pietrack said. “We just didn’t play very good is the best way to put it. They’re one of the better defensive teams in the league, and it was a bad night to have a bad first half shooting. We couldn’t get back on track, and buckets were hard to come by tonight.”
Rebounding was a struggle, as FLC allowed 14 offensive rebounds and was outproduced on the glass 39-30.
Farris scored 12 of FLC’s first 14 points and had the game tied at 15-15, but a 7-0 run by Black Hills State saw the Yellow Jackets take the lead for good. It was 33-25 at halftime, and Black Hills quickly made it 47-29 in the opening four minutes of the second half.
“We addressed some things at halftime, tried to cut some off of Farris and get guys going but, honestly, no one else was making anything,” Pietrack said. “A couple guys started making late. Farris kept us alive for a bit, but these road trips are hard, and we didn’t play with enough energy or toughness to win the game tonight.”
A split on the trip to South Dakota was something the Skyhawks weren’t happy with. The two RMAC losses now have come to New Mexico Highlands and Black Hills, the two teams that played in the RMAC tournament championship game last season.
“We are not very happy with our 2-2 start,” Pietrack said. “We’re not quite ready for those teams that were in the tournament final last year. We are the youngest team in the league, but we have to be better in these games. It’s disappointing we weren’t.”
FLC will get ready to come home for three consecutive games around the holiday break, with a 7:30 p.m. Saturday game against rival Adams State scheduled to close out the 2019 portion of the schedule.
“We gotta take care of the home games,” Pietrack said. “We’re excited for Adams State, a rival of ours who we had bad results against last year. This is a week-to-week league, and we have to take care of home court.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
