Photo by Noah Clooten
DEVILS LAKE — For the second straight game, LRSC men’s basketball didn’t have quite enough juice to grab a win.
The Royals (11-11, 3-3) were in it for most of the way, but they fell 95-87 to United Tribes Technical College (8-12, 3-3) on Sunday. Akok Ajou led LRSC with 20 points. But Houston Davis had 24 for UTTC, and a pair of former Four Winds players — Jacolby Pearson and Dalen Leftbear — had 20 and 14 points, respectively.
“I thought all night, they were the tougher, more aggressive team,” LRSC head coach Jared Marshall said of the Thunderbirds. “And we weren’t. We got caught up in too many different things — the reffing, what they’re doing and what’s going on — and we just need to worry about ourselves.”
The Royals had their deficit as tight as one point in the second half. But the Thunderbirds had a stretch where they outscored LRSC 18-6, and it was a double-digit game with only a few minutes left.
“We made a bad play; we dwelled on it,” Marshall said. “We didn’t get over it. If we missed a shot, we kept thinking about it. And that’s been a thing all year. We didn’t step up. And when [the Thunderbirds] needed a bucket, their guys stepped up.”
LRSC was also still without one of its top scorers in Poet Davis. Marshall said he could be back on the bench soon but couldn’t provide assurance on his return.
Both teams struggled to finish drives to kick things off. It was none other than Leftbear, a recent standout for Four Winds/Minnewaukan, who got the scoring started. Ginuwine Tropnas missed a pair of free throws, and LRSC was down 4-0.
Pearson, another former FW/M player, made back-to-back threes to run the score up to 18-9. Pearson had a game-high 12 points in the first half.
LRSC clawed back to tie it at 29-29. Ajou had nine first-half points, Ron Lee had seven and Tropnas and Mat Mudingay each had six. But UTTC scored six straight and had three more triples down the stretch of the half. The Thunderbirds went 7-of-19 from three-point range in the first half, while LRSC went only 2-of-11.
“It’s communication,” Marshall said. “We don’t talk, and we’re not talking to each other on the court, and talking to what’s happening to each other so we’re all on the same page. It’s too quiet… We’re not doing our jobs.”
UTTC had a 47-40 advantage at halftime. The Royals did enough to stick around, but they weren’t keeping up despite outrebounding the Thunderbirds 28-21.
Pearson’s fellow former Indian, Leftbear, had eight points in the first half. The two reservation natives had a host of fans in the LRSC home stands there to support them.
Four points from Bronson Chambers and a three by Remy Davis Warington sliced the deficit to 49-48 early in the second half.
That was as close as the Royals ever came, though. Leftbear had a couple of baskets to help UTTC grow its lead. Drew Bordeaux, who played for LRSC last year, also hit a pair of threes in the second half.
The lead eventually got into the double digits, and the Royals ran out of time to stage a comeback. Ajou and Chambers had big second halves with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Ajou finished with a double-double. Mudingay, Alvin Payne and Josh Miller provided substantial contributions, too. But it wasn’t enough for a team that fell to .500 overall and .500 in Mon-Dak play on Sunday.
“When it comes time to make plays to be successful, we don’t make those winning plays to put us over the top or to shut down other teams,” Marshall said. “And the other teams are doing that, and that’s why they’re having success against us.”
Monday’s matchup against Bismarck State College is the last game of January for the Royals. They currently sit at fourth place in the Mon-Dak. The month of February will feature seven more regular-season games.
“I think it’s gonna go one of two ways,” Marshall said. “We’re either gonna dig deep and find ourselves, and we’re gonna make a run at this thing — or we’re just gonna keep kind of letting it spiral, and we’re not gonna find the success at the end of the year like we want. And I hope that we’re a mentally tough enough team to where we’re gonna go find it. We’re gonna respond [Monday], and we’ll get one on the road. Because it’s not gonna be easy.”
