Alvin Payne (Photo by Noah Clooten)
DEVILS LAKE — Nearly half of the Royals’ active players were late to Sunday’s shootaround.
Four of those late arrivals included some of Lake Region State College’s best players — Ginuwine Tropnas, Alvin Payne, Akok Ajou and Ron Lee. As a consequence, head coach Jared Marshall sat them for the first half. He called their conduct “detrimental to the team.”
And in the end, it made all the difference.
“We hold ourselves to a higher standard with everything we do,” Marshall said. “We’ll learn lessons over winning games. And that’s the more important thing. It’s not just about basketball. We’ve gotta learn lessons and do things right.”
LRSC trailed 52-41 at the half. It got Bronson Chambers back from an ankle issue, but lacked offensive firepower with some of its prime players sitting. Tropnas and Payne returned with big second halves, and Chambers led the team with 19 points overall, but it wasn’t quite enough as the Royals (11-10, 3-2) fell 93-89 to North Dakota State College of Science (10-10, 3-2).
They had it down to the wire.
“I thought the effort was good,” Marshall said. “I thought we had great energy. We kept making run after run to cut the thing, and we just could never get over the top. And that was the frustrating part. I thought we had opportunities, and we just beat ourselves.”
With typical starters Tropnas, Payne and Ajou on the bench in the first half, Marshall started Antonio Speed, Mat Mudingay and Isaac Warhurst. Getting Chambers back from injury was a much-needed boost for a suddenly thinner LRSC team.
The Wildcats’ first 18 points all came on three-pointers. They led 15-6 and 18-10 solely from six triples. Their lead was as large as 26-13. NDSCS went 12-of-19 from three-point range in the first half and 16-of-31 overall.
“They shoot almost half their shots this year from three,” Marshall said. “There was a few I thought we blew a coverage, we left ballside corner like we shouldn’t have. Didn’t rotate like we could. But they hit some tough ones. And I give them props for that.”
A 6-0 run kept LRSC in it. Speed made two threes of his own and led the Royals with 12 points in the first half.
“Antonio did a really nice job,” Marshall said. “We just need to find the eight, nine guys that are gonna be consistent and are gonna play consistently for us.”
Chambers, the team’s leading scorer, had 11 in the first half to complement Speed. But it was still an underwhelming half for LRSC overall, trailing 51-42.
Then the big guys came back.
Tropnas, Payne and Ajou all started in the second half. Within a few minutes, the Royals went on 5-0 and 8-0 runs to get within a point. They trailed only 58-57 with 13:56 to go.
LRSC stayed in it the rest of the way, coming within a point again at 83-82 but never taking the lead. Payne had 15 second-half points, and Tropnas had 10. Chambers had eight in the second half and also rebounded seven times to provide the best all-around effort.
The Royals tried everything they could, taking rapid-fire timeouts in the game’s final seconds. Down 92-89, Payne even missed a free throw intentionally to try to make something happen. But it was all for naught, and the Royals came up slightly short.
“We are just not a disciplined team at times right now,” Marshall said.
LRSC will host United Tribes Technical College on Sunday and travel to Bismarck State College on Monday.
