Lindsey Chavers
Published: November 8, 2006
The PJC men’s basketball team is now 5-0 with a win over Alabama Southern Community College Thursday night, 76-71.
In the last 45 seconds of the game, the Eagles were only 3 points down and had possession of the ball. A foul and 40 seconds later, a steal from freshman Lasha Parghalava gave the ball back to the Pirates. A slam dunk at the buzzer by 6’6″ sophomore Durrell Baker sealed PJC’s victory.
ASCC had the height advantage, but PJC had the shooting. Cannon attempted 10 foul shots and made every one. Vernon Carr was the lead scorer with 18 points, including two 3-point shots.
The first half started with the Pirates in an unstable lead. The Eagles then took the lead with a Daryl Davis 3-point shot and started to pull ahead. A foul against ASCC gave sophomore Tyler Cannon three foul shots with which he tied the game, 14-14. But the next possession gave the Eagles back the lead. Cannon tied the score again with three successful foul shots to make the score 19-19.
“We have a lot of people doing their jobs which is what we need,” said Swanson. “Different people step up every game.”
The game continued to go back and forth until 9 minutes left in the first half. PJC took the lead and held it, ending the first half, 34-41.
The Pirates managed to hold off the Eagles for the remainder of the game but not with out some very close calls. More than once, Alabama Southern crept back to with in one or two points of PJC.
“We’ve been playing on some emotion, so we wanted to get them to focus,” said Head Coach Paul Swanson about the close calls. “In the second half, we could see they started to play with the emotion again.”
