One game, one win – even if it doesn’t count.
The Fort Lewis College men’s basketball team played an exhibition game Friday night against Montana Western at the Westminster College Behnken Field House in Salt Lake City. The Skyhawks came out on top 89-80 against the Bulldogs, a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
“They play in the Frontier Conference, a very good NAIA conference,” FLC associate head coach Bob Pietrack said of the Bulldogs on Friday in a phone interview with The Durango Herald. “Although winning and losing was not important to us as much as getting guys in the mix and teaching some new guys Fort Lewis College basketball, it’s always nice to win the game.”
FLC played all 14 players on the roster. Senior center Alex Herrera of Ignacio led the Skyhawks in minutes and just about every other statistical category. Herrera finished with 21 points, 11 rebounds, four blocks and two assists. He was 8-of-9 shooting from the field.
The Skyhawks chucked up a slew of 3-point shots, going 15-of-37 from behind the arch, and nine different FLC players made a 3.
“The emphasis for every team we play will be on Herrera in the post, and rightfully so,” Pietrack said. “But our roster is full of guys who can make the 3; even our bigs can make it. I would suspect we will shoot 3s. Whether we shoot 37 in a game again or not I don’t know, but we’ll take 15-of-37.”
Redshirt freshman guard Rasmus Bach of Austin, Texas, by way of Australia, had eight points, seven assists and three rebounds in 23 minutes. He was 2-for-2 from 3-point land.
“It’s early to say, but he probably guarded the other team’s best player, too,” Pietrack said of Bach and the potential he has to start for FLC this year. “It was a good first game for him.”
Kofi Josephs, a 6-6 junior guard from England who transferred from John Brown University in Arkansas, scored 11 points on 4-of-12 shooting, and he was 3-for-11 from behind the 3-point line.
Junior forward Kody Salcido had nine points and three rebounds in 14 minutes. Austin Haldorson, a junior forward who transferred from Wyoming, had seven rebounds. Ryan Brooks, another Ignacio alumnus, had seven points and four rebounds in eight minutes.
Stephen McCall was the leading scorer for Montana Western with 20 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field.
FLC shot 32-of-63 from the field as a team.
Pietrack said the team will use Friday’s game, as well as a 7 p.m. Saturday game against host Westminster College, as preparation for next week’s season-opening tournament in Ignacio. FLC will welcome St. Mary’s, Texas-Permian Basin and Western New Mexico to the SunUte Community Center on Nov. 14-15 in its regular-season openers.
“We had a lot of guys in different substitution patterns and rotations seeing what we have a bit with the new guys,” Pietrack said. “It was all basically just getting ready and prepared for our tournament next week in Ignacio. That’s the whole goal of this trip.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
