Maryville, Mo. - The Missouri Southern men's basketball team held strong with top-ranked Northwest Missouri, but couldn't complete the comeback, falling 82-70 to the Bearcats in the NCAA Division II Central Region Finals tonight inside Bearcat Arena.
Southern (25-8) was led by Kinzer Lambert with 27 points on 10-of-16 from the field and 4-of-8 from long-range, while pulling down 11 rebounds. Lambert went over the 1,000-point plateau in the game and now has 1,014 points in his career at Southern.
Cam Martin finished with 20 points and nine rebounds. Martin finishes the season with 720 points and finished the tournament with 100 total points, averaging 33.3 points and 12.7 rebounds, shooting 57 percent from both the field and three-point line, as well as 80 percent from the free throw line.
Elyjah Clark scored 11 points and went over the 1,400-point plateau in his career, moving into ninth-place all time on the scoring list, passing up Matt Olson (1,404) in the process.
Martin and Lambert were both named to the Central Region All-Tournament team.
Northwest (35-0) was led by Ryan Hawkins who scored 28 points and had nine rebounds. Trevor Hudgins added 22 points.
The Bearcats scored the game's first five points, all by Hawkins, and led 5-0 just two minutes into the game. Southern, however, scored five-straight to tie it up and led 11-9 after a three from Lambert with 14:57 left in the half. A jumper from Lambert made the score 14-8 with 13:27 to go and a bucket from Martin with 11:36 left gave the Lions an 18-11 lead.
Northwest scored eight-straight to take a 19-18 lead with 8:16 left, but Martin answered right back to put the Lions up 20-19 with 6:46 to go in the half. From that point on, Northwest closed the half on a 14-4 run to lead 33-24 going into the locker room at the break.
The Bearcats pushed their lead to 14 (43-29) with 14:55 left on the clock and led by 15 with 14 to go. A jumper from Lambert cut the lead to 11 (46-35) and a three from Martin again cut the lead to 11 (49-38) with 10 minutes to go.
Northwest pushed its lead to 16 on multiple occasions, the last after a pair of free throws from Ryan Hawkins with 7:26 to go and led by 17 with just under seven minutes on the clock. The Bearcats' lead was 18, but five-straight points, the last a three from the right wing, from Clark cut the deficit to 13 (63-50) with 5:21 to go.
Southern got within 11 after a pair of free throws from Lambert with 4:38 to go and cut the lead to 11 again multiple times after those free throws but couldn't complete the comeback.
The Lions out rebounded Northwest 36-31, including 15-8 on the offensive boards. Southern had a 30-18 advantage in the paint, as well.
The 25 wins for the Lions is the fourth-most all-time in a season for Southern, trailing only the 99-00 (33), 77-78 (27) and 10-11 (26) seasons. The Lions graduate just one player in Enis Memic and will return all five starters from this team to start the season.
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