Anderson SC - On Sunday afternoon the Southern Wesleyan University Men's Basketball team played for the second time in as many days. This time, they took on the Flagler College Saints in game two of the Southeast Region Challenge. 

The Warriors again showed great fight to cut into a large deficit and make it a tight game down the stretch including having a 4-point lead with less than two minutes remaining. Aaron Tims was the team's leading scorer again today, finishing with 18 points on 7-10 field goal and 4-4 3-point field goal shooting. Freshman Eric Hackett had a brilliant performance with 17 points off the bench, and Che Smith, Griffin Effenberger, and Reco Hallmon round out the list of Warriors in double-digit scoring. 




Game Vitals:

Final: Southern Wesleyan 90, Flagler 93

Records: Southern Wesleyan (0-2), Flagler (1-1)




How It Happened:

The Warriors made two changes to the starting lineup that lost to Coker in the season opener, and it was Raevon Allen and Aaron Tims, the two leading scorers from yesterday's game, who were inserted into the lineup alongside Che Smith, Marcus Long, and Reco Hallmon. They had a very bright start to their second game in as many days opening on a 7-0 run. A Hallmon drive-and-kick to Tims on the right wing opened the scoring for SWU, followed by two Che Smith free throws and a Hallmon and-1 (free throw no good). Hallmon had some very strong dribble drives early which generally led to good things for the Warrior offense. The points began to slow down between the 13 and 7 minute marks, where Flagler took and built onto their lead. The play of freshman Eric Hackett was a bright spot in the first half, as he had nine points on 2-4 shooting going into the locker room. However, the Warriors did struggle with turnovers in the opening period losing that stat nine to five and points off turnovers 12 to two.

The Saints continued their excellent play into the second half. They had a lot of success beating Warrior defenders off the dribble, and either scoring on the drive or finding shooters for open looks. Their lead grew to as many as 18 early in the period, but just like yesterday, Southern Wesleyan hung around. The Flagler lead stayed in the 15 to 11 point range for the middle portion of the second half. And with nine minutes remaining in the game, the Warriors made their move. It started with an Aaron Tims right-handed hook shot followed by transition buckets from Che Smith and Griffin Effenberger. SWU went on an 11-0 run over the next 4 minutes, capped by a beautiful ball-fake transition layup from Eric Hackett to cut the lead down to two. A couple minutes later they took their first lead since the 12:25 mark of the first half through a Dyren Brown up-and-under layup to make it 84-82. Although their overall free throw shooting was much better in comparison to that of yesterday's game, it was a miss in the front end of a one-and-one that played a huge part in the collapse of the Warrior lead. They were up 88-84 with 1:40 left when Smith missed that free throw. Buckets from Jalen Barr and Raevon Allen would cancel out, but an Omar Figueroa three cut the SWU lead to 1 with just over a minute left. Two possessions later the same Saints hit a pull-up mid-range jumper to give Flagler the lead, a lead which they did not relinquish for the remainder of the game, sealing a 93-90 loss for Southern Wesleyan. 



What's Next:

The Warriors will have the week off before traveling to Carson-Newman on Saturday, November 18th.