The Southwest men’s basketball team went on the road to play the Meridian Community College Eagles on Thursday and came home with a 81-64 win in its final road game of the season.
With a top four spot in the upcoming MACCC playoffs on the line, the Bears needed to secure a win to lock up a first-round bye in the postseason.
Meridian came out firing, jumping out to a quick 7-0 lead before Courterius Scott began the scoring for the Bears.
The Eagles held the lead for the entire first half, going up 19-9 with 12:20 left in the first half.
Southwest began to pick up the pace to cut into the double-digit Eagle lead. A Chidi Nwosu three pointer started a run that would cut the margin down to three.
In the last minute, Leano Rolle and Courterius Scott came up with clutch buckets to help the run and go into the half with a score of 33-31 favoring Meridian.
The Eagles came out of the break with a quick three pointer but were quickly answered by a Nwosu bucket and Scott three-pointer that would tie the game.
Meridian continued to fight, draining three pointers left and right to retake the lead.
The Bears trailed 37-45 with 17:13 left to play, but that's when Leano Rolle began to take over.
Rolle scored seven straight points in the game starting with a deep three pointer to get the Bears back into it.
Then, a Courterius Scott bucket gave Southwest the lead with 13:23 to play in the game, and the Bears would hold onto it the rest of the way.
As the offense began to heat up, everyone got involved in the scoring for Southwest.
A Cy Merrett slam put the Bears up 10 points and started to put the game out of reach with under ten minutes left on the clock.
In the final four minutes, Leano Rolle had seven more points, including four clutch free throws and another three-pointer, to help seal the win for Southwest.
Robert Flantroy II scored the final points of the game to give the Bears an 81-64 win over the Eagles.
Leano Rolle led the team with 23 points. Courterius Scott followed with 17 points. Chidi Nwosu and Cy Merrett also contributed 14 and 11 points respectively.
Scott and Nwosu each had three made triples.
The team had 22 combined assists in the game.
"Frustrating start to the game, with too many turnovers and they were making some shots. Took us a little too long to settle in. But once we did I thought we played really well. We shared the ball well with 22 assists, shot well at 50% from 3, and defended well after the first 5 minutes,” head coach Corey Schmidt said. “A lot of positives to take. Still some stuff we have to clean up here to finish the regular season and going into the playoffs, but I am proud of where we are at securing a 1st round bye."
"Rolle really figured some stuff out tonight, attacking the basket and playing under control a lot more consistently. Then still going 2-4 from 3 while getting a block and 2 steals on the other end. That's the player we need him to be," Schmidt added.
The Bears (15-14, 9-4) will finish out the regular season at home on Monday when they take on Jones Community College.
