Roundup: Knights upend Reinhardt in OT thriller

LAURINBURG — The St. Andrews Knights men’s basketball team never trailed in all 40 minutes of regulation Saturday against the Reinhardt Eagles.

It still took an additional five for there to be a winner.

After the game went into overtime tied at 91-all, St. Andrews took the scoring battle in the extra period 7-5 to get a 98-96 upset win over Reinhardt, now at 11-12 overall and 10-10 in the Appalachian Athletic Conference.

“First of all, I want to thank the fans,” St. Andrews head coach Randy Hernandez said. “The fans are the biggest thing; I’ve always said that. When we have fans, the energy’s there. They showed up, and I’ve got to give it to the family and friends that came to the game. They stood with us.”

In the final minute of the second half, St. Andrews (5-18, 3-17 AAC) shot just 4 of 7 from the free-throw line and had a 90-86 lead until Reinhardt’s Tayden Owens found an open lane and made a layup. St. Andrews’ Jalen Mcafee-Marion was fouled by Reinhardt’s Brasen James on the ensuing possession and had a chance to put the Knights up four but missed the backend of his two foul shots; Reinhardt took the ball down to the other end, and Nate Jones bottomed a 3-pointer with 1.5 remaining, which continued the game.

”He’s the best shooter on their team,” Hernandez said on Jones. “He made the shot, and we should have never left him open, but it happened. You get frustrated. We should have made free throws. We should have ended it a long time ago. But unfortunately, we didn’t.”

Neither team scored for nearly the first two minutes of overtime, but Derrian Reed hit a 3-point shot with 3:10 left to put the Eagles in front 94-91. Mcafee-Marion answered with a layup, and Allan Taylor and Caleb Brown added to it with two-point possessions for the Knights to go back up 97-94; Owens laid in another shot for the Eagles, and after Garrett McRae put another point on the board to make St. Andrews’ lead 98-96 with 5.6 remaining, Reinhardt called a timeout.

“He’s telling us that we need to stay down and remember what we were working on all week,” Mcafee-Marion said on what Hernandez told the team during the timeout. “We literally stressed this all week. We’ve worked on these situations, these scenarios, and just really trusting in one another.”

The Eagles got the ball down the court, and Owens shot a 3 on a decent look, but it clanked off the rim as the buzzer sounded.

“At the end of the game, we didn’t fall back,” Hernandez said. “I think the Pikeville game carried over, the second half, and we played 45 minutes. That’s the big difference. A lot of guys did a lot of good stuff. We practiced hard. The biggest thing is just winning the game and making sure we execute. And they executed.”

“We all trusted one another on that court,” Mcafee-Marion said. “That’s really why we came away with this win today.”

Mcafee-Marion finished with 27 points on 10-for-14 shooting (4-for-5 from 3) and two blocks.

“I feel like there’s been times where I don’t listen to my coaches and my teammates, and I really try to force,” Mcafee-Marion said. “And I feel like that’s when I start playing, like, not good team ball. And if I’m playing team ball, letting it come to me and just flowing within the offense, it’s when everything starts falling for me. So, it’s when I feel most comfortable.”

Taylor had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds, along with two blocks for St. Andrews; Quwan Barnes also had a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds and added five assists; McRae scored 13 points with eight assists and Sincere Clark scored nine points with four rebounds and two blocks.

Jordan Taylor played for the first time this season and compiled 14 points, seven rebounds and four assists off the bench for the Knights.

“He finally got cleared by the NAIA,” Hernandez said on Jordan Taylor. “He finally got cleared. It was a long time coming.”

Jones scored a game-high 29 points and six 3s with four rebounds and three steals for Reinhardt; Tyler Smith scored 21 points with seven rebounds; Reed scored 18 points as a reserve with five rebounds and seven assists and Nate Louis had 15 points, six rebounds and four steals.

After getting out to an 11-5 advantage, St. Andrews only led 24-21 about halfway through the first half. While Reinhardt knotted the score at 25-25, the Knights netted six consecutive points. After the Eagles cut it to 34-32, St. Andrews was up by five or more for the final 3:44 of the first half, taking a 46-37 lead into halftime.

“They did a great job defensively,” Hernandez said about his guys. “The defense was at a high level; defense was amazing. We put guys in situations. Reinhardt’s a great team. So, it’s not a team that, if you fight, they’re going to lack off. They fight, and they fight and they keep going.”

Reinhardt’s Tyler Smith put in a layup for the second half’s first bucket, but Clark made one as well while being fouled on the following possession; Clark made the free throw, and St. Andrews held a lead of six points or more until Jones’ trey made it 68-65 at the 10:25 mark. St. Andrews’ 7-0 mini run afterward pushed its lead back out, and Reinhardt didn’t come to within less than four before Louis’ layup-and-1 with 2:07 to go helped the Eagles get back to a one-point deficit at 87-86 before Barnes’ free throws with 55 seconds left.

St. Andrews plays its final home game on Feb. 17 against Union.

Lady Knights fall to No. 23 Reinhardt in home finale

The last time the St. Andrews Knights women’s basketball team met against the Reinhardt Eagles on Jan. 2, the Lady Knights fell 103-35 in Waleska, Georgia.

While the Lady Knights made it competitive early in the first half of Saturday’s rematch in Laurinburg — with only six players able to play — they ended up suffering another sizeable defeat to the 23rd-ranked Eagles, who moved to 23-0 on the season and 19-0 in Appalachian Athletic Conference play with a 96-57 win.

”They’re very good, well balanced; they do a lot of things well,” St. Andrews interim head coach Randall Johnson said on Reinhardt. “We were playing with six, so it’s hard with six players. It’s hard to play the different ways you want to play. But I thought they fought to the end.”

The contest was the Lady Knights’ last at home this season. While most home finales in the regular season celebrate senior day, St. Andrews’ lone senior, Hailey Crozier, will be honored before the men’s team’s final home game against Union on Feb. 17 with their seniors instead.

“Hailey’s been good for the team,” Johnson said. “She is very coachable, does everything we ask her to do. She’s done that for the past two years from what I’ve seen, last year, and of course this year, my experiences coaching with her. A great student, and we definitely wish her well in her endeavors.”St. Andrews (6-15, 5-15 AAC) scored the game’s first basket on a Samantha Tougher shot in the paint at the 7:25 mark before Reinhardt took a 10-2 lead with an 8-0 run. St. Andrews fell behind 18-9, but A.J. Price’s 3-point shot at the buzzer made it 18-12 at the end of the first quarter.

“The first quarter, we were right there,” Johnson said. “I think it was like (a six)-point game the first quarter.”

Despite putting up 17 points in the second, St. Andrews allowed 26, which put the halftime score at 44-29; Reinhardt led 69-46 after the third and outscored the Lady Knights 27-11 in the fourth.

“We got a little tired there,” Johnson said. “Fourth quarter just got away, and their multiple bodies and how well they played just caught up with us.”

Julia Craft scored 24 points (6-for-9 from 3) with two rebounds and two assists for Reinhardt; Nya Moon scored 18 points on 8-for-11 shooting off the bench with three assists, two rebounds and two assists; Maria Sanchez Ponce scored 11 points with eight rebounds, playing only 19 minutes after suffering an injury; Ashley Woodroffe had seven points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals and Avanna Preston had three steals.

Ashley Starks led St. Andrews with 20 points and had four rebounds and two steals; A.J. Price scored 18 points with five rebounds and Emily Cruz had 16 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals.

St. Andrews wraps up its season at Truett McConnell on Feb. 21 and at Milligan on Feb. 24.

The Lady Knights were eliminated from making the AAC tournament on Saturday with the loss and Tennessee Wesleyan, which was in ninth at 7-11 in the conference, defeating Brenau; if St. Andrews would have won out and Tennessee Wesleyan lost its final four games, the Lady Knights would have made the AAC tournament, as they held the tiebreaker from their 69-66 win over the Bulldogs on Jan. 20.