LAKELAND, Fla. – Florida Southern College men's basketball rallied in the second half to overcome a double-digit halftime deficit to capture an 81-78 win over Florida Tech in Sunshine State Conference play inside the Streamline Sale Arena at the George W. Jenkins Field House.
"Very good win and the second half for us," Head Coach
Mike Donnelly commented. "We made some adjustments at halftime including the lineup and that gave us some jolt of energy and some confidence. Every game is important for us and we had to do something to get us going, luckily you could see that group was confident and helped us get a big win."
Trailing by as many as 11 in the second half, the Moccasins rallied to make for a thrilling game. A late three by
Jack Casale with under two minutes to go would give Florida Southern (8-12, 5-7 SSC) the advantage. Florida Tech (9-8, 3-9 SSC) would have a chance to tie things with 18-seconds on the clock but failed to convert both free throws, 79-78 FSC, where on the ensuing play
Xavier Rhodes was fouled and went 2-for-2 from the line to push it to 81-78. The Panthers would have two looks in the closing seconds but missed both three-pointers as the buzzer sounded.
In the first half,
E.J. Dambreville started things off with a three for the game before Florida Tech controlled the pace of the first half and took a 45-34 advantage into the break. Florida Southern erased an 11-point first-half deficit and closed it to one point with 12:25 to play.
DeAndre Campbell,
Luke Anderson, and
Xavier Rhodes would help swing the momentum to the Moccasins.
Five players would score in double-figures for Florida Southern with
Luke Anderson and
E.J. Dambreville leading the way with 15 points each.
Jack Casale would add 12 points with
Xavier Rhodes and
DeAndre Campbell both at 11. As a team, the Mocs' bench had 35 points to the Panthers' four.
Donnelly added, "We had great bench production tonight. I am happy with Luke because he is a good shooter and for him to hit two threes, that will help us going forward. DeAndre has been big off the bench in spots all year and came up huge again tonight. Jack's three; he needed that and we needed that. Big shots. I think we guarded really well in the second half and we got a great win."
Florida Tech was led by Niall Harris with 23 points with Sesan Russell close behind at 20 points. Runako Ziegler would chip in 16 points while Mate Papai notched 12. Harris concluded the game with a double-double in the full 40 minutes of action with a game-high 10 rebounds.
Up Next
Florida Southern will hit the road for a pair of games on Jan. 29 at Palm Beach Atlantic and then Feb. 2 at Rollins before returning home on Feb. 5 to host Lynn.
