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Fort Lewis College Athletics

Scoreboard

Riley Farris 12.14
FLC redshirt junior Riley Farris scored 42 points in Saturday's loss to Black Hills State. (File photo)
70
Fort Lewis FLC 8-2,2-2 RMAC
81
Winner Black Hills St. BHSU 5-5,3-2 RMAC
Fort Lewis FLC
8-2,2-2 RMAC
70
Final
81
Black Hills St. BHSU
5-5,3-2 RMAC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Fort Lewis FLC 25 45 70
Black Hills St. BHSU 33 48 81

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | David Wilson, Assistant AD-Communications

FLC offense struggles in road loss to Black Hills State

SPEARFISH, South Dakota — The Fort Lewis College men's basketball team struggled to gain traction offensively on Saturday night, falling 81-70 on the night second of a road back-to-back against Black Hills State University.

Fort Lewis (8-2 overall, 2-2 RMAC) entered the evening the second-highest scoring team in the RMAC at close to 89 points per game, but were limited to a season-low 39.6% shooting night (21-for-53) by a stingy Yellow Jackets (5-5 overall, 3-2 RMAC) defense.

"I thought Black Hills out-toughed us and we could not get shots to go down besides (Riley) Farris," said Fort Lewis head coach, Bob Pietrack. "Defensively, we were not very good and Black Hills won the game."

After the two teams played each other even through the first 10 minutes of action, BHSU closed the first half on an 18-10 scoring run to build a 33-25 lead at the break, which could have been a lot bigger if not for the splendid first half by FLC redshirt junior Riley Farris.

Farris scored 17 of his team-high 24 points in the first half, extending his streak to 10 games with 20 or more points, to keep the Skyhawks in contact.

Black Hills opened the second half on a 13-4 run to build its largest lead of the game at 44-29 with 16:40 remaining.

The Skyhawks gradually chipped away at the lead, closing within eight points at the 1:47 mark on a 3-pointer from junior guard Logan Hokanson, who has started to turn the corner offensively after battling a nagging wrist injury.

Hokanson scored all 11 of his points in the second half, giving him back-to-back games with double-digit point totals after scoring 12 in Friday's win over South Dakota School of Mines. He's shot 7-of-14 from the field and 5-of-10 from 3-point range during the two-game stretch.

Unfortunately for FLC, that's as close as they'd rallied in the second half as BHSU, which held a 39-30 rebounding advantage that included 14 offensive rebounds, would hold on for the 81-70 final.

"The rebounding sticks out. We gave up seven offensive rebounds to Joel Scott (game-high 25 points), most of them for easy put-backs," Pietrack said. "That really hurt us. And then our inability to shoot at a high percentage really hurt us tonight."

The third Skyhawk in double-figures on Saturday was junior guard Will Wittman with 11 points, while freshman Akuel Kot and senior Danny Garrick chipped in eight points and six points, respectively.

Saturday's loss was a teachable moment for a young Skyhawks' team still in the process of growing together inside a difficult RMAC conference.

"We're the youngest team in the conference with one senior and more than half our roster being underclassmen so we're still developing as a team," Pietrack said. "We got off to a very good start, but this is still very much a work in progress for our ball club. The young kids need to keep growing, we need to keep getting better because it's a long season."

Fort Lewis will now turn its attention toward its final game of the fall semester; a 7:30 p.m. tip-off next Saturday at home against rival Adams State University.

"We've got to have Saturday's game," Pietrack stated. "All these games are hard, but you have to take care of home court in the RMAC. We want to end the semester right and I'm sure they do too. Adams State swept us last year and that's something we've talked about. It's a good rivalry game and we expect a good crowd even though its at the tail end of the week with graduation. We're excited to play it."
 
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