Mocs Fall in Tough Battle to #2 Sharks

LAKELAND, Fla. – The Florida Southern College men's basketball team nearly pulled off the biggest upset at Streamline Sale Court inside the George W. Jenkins Field House Saturday night. The Moccasins battled No. 2 Nova Southeastern to the buzzer but fell, 114-107, in the closest game of the season for the Sharks.

"Disappointing to come up short tonight," Head Coach Mike Donnelly stated. "Obviously our turnovers were very costly, but credit Nova Southeastern for their defensive pressure. With that being said, our guys played really hard and fought like crazy to give us a chance, down only three points with the ball with 26 seconds remaining. This loss hurts, but we will move on quickly and focus on a huge game at Eckerd Wednesday night."

Florida Southern moves to 13-7 overall and 7-6 in Sunshine State Conference play. The Mocs were paced by redshirt sophomore Jadin Booth who tallied his second 30-point game of the season, just ahead of redshirt senior E.J. Dambreville at 28 points. Redshirt sophomore Luke Anderson added 17 points while freshman Alex Steen registered 13 points. Dambreville added yet another double-double to his yearly count, currently at eight and five-straight, hauling in a game-high 13 rebounds.
 
Nova Southeastern remains undefeated at 20-0 and 13-0 in SSC play. Jonathan Pierre paced the Sharks with 26 points ahead of Dallas Graziani's 23, RJ Sunahara's 22, and Will Yoakum's 21.
 
The Mocs came out firing on all cylinders, claiming an early 7-2 lead. After battling back and forth, and each team claimed a lead in the first half, Nova Southeastern carried a 59-50 advantage to the halftime break.
 
Florida Southern used the 15-minute break to rally and made five straight three-pointers, from Luke Anderson, Jadin Booth, E.J. Dambreville, Anderson, Booth to tie things at 65 with just under 17 minutes to go.
 
The Sharks answered with an eight-point run and would extend out to a 14-point advantage to the 8:58 mark. Trailing 94-80, the Mocs showed grit and continued to battle down the stretch finding back-to-back-to-back threes from Connor Raines and Jadin Booth to cut it to eight, and to six points on a Booth jumper, 97-91 (7:11).  
 
As the game reached the one-minute mark, the Mocs cut it to four, 105-101 on a backdoor dunk from Wes Bongiorni. A quick three and free throw pushed it back to an eight-point game, but Florida Southern didn't stop and got within three on a pair of Dambreville threes, 110-107. NSU used four free throws in the final 18 seconds as the game drew to a close, 114-107.
 
Florida Southern College will look to rally and open the month of February on Wednesday, Feb. 1 at Eckerd with a 7:30 p.m. schedule tip in the McArthur Center in St. Petersburg.
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