Box Score LAKELAND - Florida Southern concluded the regular season home portion of its schedule here Wednesday evening against Tampa by closing the game on a 16-8 run over the final six minutes of the game en route to posting an 87-79 victory over the Spartans in Sunshine State Conference action at Jenkins Field House.
Prior to the beginning of Wednesday's game, the top-ranked Moccasins honored its six member senior class in a pregame ceremony. The six seniors this year are forward Stephen Battle (Waldorf, Md.), guard Kevin Capers (Winter Haven, Fla.), forward Bubby Johnson (Waldorf, Md.), guard Tyler Kelly (Pickerington, Ohio), guard Tyler Logan (Landover, Md.) and forward Daniel Turner (McCordsville, Ind.).
With the victory on Wednesday against Tampa, the Mocs extended its win streak to 15 straight games and improved to 26-1 overall and 14-1 in the SSC. In addition to winning its 15th consecutive game, the Mocs also secured no worse than a tie for the regular season SSC title with one game remaining in the regular season. FSC can clinch its third straight SSC regular season title and the No. 1 seed in next weekend's SSC Tournament with a win in its regular season finale on Saturday at Rollins.
"We want to win the league title by ourselves and not share it with anyone," Moccasin head coach Linc Darner said following his team's 14th straight SSC victory. "We have to go in ready to play on Saturday at Rollins and be focused as a basketball team."
The Mocs closing run was needed was needed in Wednesday's game after Tampa (17-9, 9-6 SSC) used a 10-0 scoring spree to tie the game at 71 following a deep trey from Jordan Davis. In fact, Davis hit two treys during the run to turned a 71-61 Moccasin lead into a 71-all tie with 6:04 left in the game.
"I thought we played better in the second half," added Darner. "We got up 10 and then had a mental lapse, but then I thought we finished the game well."
After the two teams played to a 42-all tie at the half, Tampa opened the second half on 5-2 run to take a 47-44 lead following a trey from Austin Rettig.
FSC, though, would respond with an 11-2 run to push out to a 56-49 lead following a trey from Kelly with 14:20 remaining in the game. After Kyle Middleton dropped the Mocs lead to 56-51, FSC used a 9-4 run keyed by five points from junior guard Dylan Travis (Omaha, Neb.) to push out to a 65-55 lead.
"I thought T.K. came out in the second half and made some big shots and Dylan (Travis) came in and hit some big shots and made some plays defensively for us that seemed to get us going," the Mocs coach said when asked about his team's opening run in the second half.
After UT scored three points thanks to a 3-point play from Jason Brown, the Mocs would use a 6-3 run capped by a Travis lay-up to push in front 71-61 with 8:17 remaining.
The Mocs offense was paced by 20 points on the night from Capers, while Kelly added 19 points and 10 rebounds for his second career double-double. Travis added 13 points off the bench as FSC's bench outscored UT's bench, 30-20 and Battle chipped in with 10 points.
It marked the 99th career double-digit scoring effort by Capers and his 37th career 20 point game. Six of Capers' game high 20 points came in the final 30 seconds of the contest, including hitting four straight free throws in the final 17 seconds.
The Mocs jumped out to a 17-11 lead just a little over four minutes into game, before the Spartans used a 17-12 run to pull within 29-28 following a lay-up by Tiant McCoy.
FSC would answer with a 9-0 run capped by a Travis trey to push out to a 38-28 lead. The Spartans, though, would close the first half on a 14-4 run to tie the game at 42 at the half. The Mocs were held to just four points over the final seven-plus minutes of the opening half.
"I said to Coach Swank at the half that the worst thing might have been that we hit all those three's early in the game and for a while we fell in love with the three, instead of looking to drive," Darner commented when asked about his teams struggles in the final eight minutes of the first half. "We couldn't score and we also had trouble holding on to the ball. We only scored four points over the final eight minutes of the first half."
The Mocs opened the game hitting 13 of its first 27 field goal attempts and hitting eight of its first 14 3-point shot attempts. FSC, though, closed the first half connecting on just two of its last nine shots.
Eugene McCrory led the way for the Spartans as he finished with 18 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field and he added eight boards as UT held a 44-34 edge in the glass in the game. In addition to McCrory, Rettig added 17 points and eight boards, while Davis had 16 points, nine rebounds and four assists in the loss. The final Spartan to reach double figures was Middleton as he scored 11 points for the game.
"Jordan Davis hits big shots, but I thought we did a good job guarding their two perimeter guys, Davis and Rettig," the Mocs coach said. "They really good down low and its hard to guard the big boy (McCrory). I thought we made him take tough shots, but he just hit them."
Despite losing the battle on the boards, the Mocs forced UT into 16 turnovers that led to 24 points, including scoring 12 points off of 10 UT first half turnovers. FSC also held a 4-1 edge in blocked shots as Battle recorded three of those four blocked shots.
For the game, the Mocs shot 46 percent from the field and 42 percent from the 3-point line, including hitting seven of its first 13 treys. UT finished the game shooting 43 percent from the floor, but the league's top 3-point field goal percentage defense held the Spartans to 28 percent shooting (7-for-25) from downtown.
The Mocs will look to end the regular season on a high note as they travel to Winter Park for a 4 p.m. game on Saturday, Feb. 28 at Rollins (9-18 overall, 2-13 SSC). The Mocs picked up a 74-70 win earlier this season in Lakeland against the Tars.
