Two of the best players in all of Division II men’s college basketball were in Durango on Saturday night.
Led by two-time National Player of the Week Derrick White, the No. 15 UC-Colorado Springs Mountain Lions stepped into Whalen Gymnasium on the Fort Lewis College campus looking to end a two-game losing streak against the Alex Herrera led Skyhawks.
Both players put on a show, with White scoring a game-high 35 points while bringing down 11 rebounds, four steals and dishing out four assists. He also had two blocked shots, including one on Herrera, the leading shot blocker in the nation.
Herrera had a team-high 27 points, 16 rebounds and one blocked shot, but it wasn’t enough for FLC as it dropped its second in a row in a 90-75 defeat.
“We had the two best players in the league without question, in my opinion. It was a terrific matchup and both had great games,” FLC head coach Bob Hofman said.
UC-Colorado Springs (20-4, 14-4 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) controlled the game throughout with FLC constantly chasing the Mountain Lions.
The Skyhawks (17-7, 12-6 RMAC) trailed by as many as 17 points late in the game, but they had it down to a seven-point deficit with 5 minutes to play. But clutch 3-point shooting from Tim Billingsley and superstar play from White gave the Mountain Lions enough to hold off the Skyhawks.
“It’s a huge win for us for 100 reasons. Fort Lewis is such a good team, this is a tough place to play,” UC-Colorado Springs head coach Jeff Culver said. “With the way this season is going and as bottle-necked as this conference is getting, it was a great step in the direction of us finding ourselves again.”
Billingsley hit all three 3-pointers he attempted and scored 13 points. Forward Alex Welsh, who guarded Herrrea much of the night, added 14 points on a 5-of-10 shooting night.
FLC didn’t get the clutch shooting it needed, shooting only 13-of-33 from the floor in the first half and 3-of-12 from 3-point range in the second.
The Mountain Lions also took advantage of free-throw shooting, going a near-perfect 25-of-26 from the free-throw line.
White dazzled all night with his block of Herrera and a posterizing dunk against the 6-foot-9 center from Ignacio in the first half.
“I was messing around with my guys saying I was going to dunk on Herrera. He got me a couple of times with some blocks, so I was just trying to go at it,” White said.
FLC received well-rounded scoring, but 18 turnovers stalled the Skyhawks’ offense. Cade Kloster scored 14 points but only two in the second half. Rasmus Bach and Will Morse each had 10 points for FLC. Austin Haldorson hit two big 3s in the second half before fouling out, and he finished with six points.
Hofman didn’t think his team had fully recovered from a 20-plus point loss a night before to CSU-Pueblo.
“The effort wasn’t a problem. Coming off a loss like we had last night, we didn’t get all of our energy channeled as poisitive as it needed to be,” he said. “We had a little bit of negativity out there.
“Now the question is how much can we learn from this weekend and what can we gain from this adversity. ... We haven’t faced it. We haven’t had a situation where we’ve lost back-to-back (at home) in 15 years, I think.”
FLC will look to bounce back from the two home losses against No. 10 Metro State at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
“We’re going to learn from this, watch film and break it down,” Herrera said. “Shake it off next week, work and be ready to play Friday night. All these games count the same. We need them all right now. We have to go into each game focused.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
