ABILENE - The Abilene Christian men's basketball team earned its first victory of the season after defeating York College of Nebraska, 93-82, Friday night at Moody Coliseum. The victory evened the Wildcats' record at 1-1, while the Panthers dropped to 7-2.
Senior guard
Eric Lawton was fantastic from the field in matching his season high of 23 points on 10 of 16 shooting (.625), and senior center
Steven Werner posted the program's first double-double of the year with 17 points and 16 rebounds. Also reaching double figures tonight were junior forward
Cornelius Cammock who nailed 6 of 8 field goals to finish with 14 points, and senior guard
Elliott Lloyd, who poured in 12 points.
Lawton scored 20 points in the second half on 9 of 11 shooting, and along the way drilled two big 3-pointers, the last of which pushed ACU's lead back into double digits a final time with 2:06 left in the game. Just 20 seconds earlier, York's Dylan Brewer trimmed the Wildcat lead to eight points (80-72) after burying his lone 3-pointer of the evening.
ACU would hit four more of its field goals during the closing minutes, including a pair of layups by Lawton, to finish the second half with a solid .541 shooting percentage.
The Wildcats scored the game's first seven points, but that lead quickly vanished as the Panthers countered with seven straight points from senior guard Marcus Johnson in under two minutes. York went on to take its first lead at the 14:34 mark on the second of two free throws by Mike Buffalo, and grabbed its biggest lead of the night at four points - 17-13 - following Reggie Johnson's 3-point bucket.
But ACU would regain the lead for good just over a minute later after a 3-point play from Lloyd was followed by
T.J. Brown's game-tying foul shot and
Parker Wentz' go-ahead trey at the 12:04 mark.
An alley-oop slam dunk from Wentz to Lawton pushed the ACU lead back to eight points with 6:54 remaining in the half, and with 2:53 to go, a tip-in by
Tyler Rogers capped a 9-0 run that gave the Wildcats their largest lead of the half at 40-27.
ACU entered halftime up by nine points at 44-35 after Werner and
Tyler Rogers hit a pair of jumpers during the final minute.
The Panthers, however, refused to go away, and even after they trailed by as many as 19 points with 10:03 left, they crept back to within nine points after going on a four-minute 16-6 run that included an 8 for 8 showing from the free-throw line and a pair of 3-pointers from Andre Vaughn.
York finished 20 of 26 from the free-throw line, but struggled from the field overall as it connected on only 37 percent of its shots. The Panthers also lost the rebounding war, 54-34, and were clobbered scoring-wise in the paint, 56-24.
Thadd Varmall went 6 of 7 from the line to finish with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Johnson scored 18 on 7 of 11 shooting and Buffalo scored eight of his 10 points from the charity stripe.
The Wildcats return to action Saturday at 6 p.m. vs. Sul Ross State, which lost to McMurry, 75-47, in the first half of today's doubleheader at the Whitten Inn Classic. York will face McMurry tomorrow at 4 p.m.
