| Club hockey ices Clemson |
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Jonathan Williams | The Appalachian
The ASU club ice hockey team defeated Clemson university Saturday in Pineville. The 5-4 win was the last game of the season. |
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Hugh Kellenberger | The Appalachian
ASU's forward clint deas battles UNCG's forward Josh Gross during saturday's game. The mountaineers winning streak ended with the 92-73 loss. |
UNCG breaks men's basketball's winning streak, 92-73
by Brad Norman
Associate Editor
Appalachian State University’s seven game win streak came to an abrupt halt Saturday in Greensboro.
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro shot a torrid 62 percent from the field for the game, which led to a 92-73 win over Appalachian.
ASU not only lost for the first time since Jan. 24, the team also failed to clinch a bye in the first round of the Southern Conference tournament.
“We played a really, really hungry team tonight,” ASU head coach Houston Fancher said. “They had a major sense of urgency.”
Although the final margin of defeat was 19 points, Appalachian led for the majority of the first half. The Mountaineers made shots early in their transition offense to take a quick 10-6 lead. Once the shots stopped falling for ASU, however, the Spartans took advantage.
Nursing a 30-26 lead with 6:25 left in the half, Appalachian missed four shots and committed three turnovers during the next three minutes. By that point, UNCG staked a 37-30 lead, a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the game.
The Mountaineers brought the deficit to four points (53-49) with 12:49 remaining in the game, but the Spartans used a 21-7 run to put the game away.
ASU’s three-point field goal shooting, something that keyed the win streak, was nearly non-existent. As a team, ASU shot 22 percent from behind the arc.
Despite shooting so poorly, ASU was able to remain close due to the play of the post players.
Clint Deas poured in 22 points and tallied 11 rebounds, eight of them offensive, to lead ASU in both categories.
“He was really taking it to us,” Spartan freshman Kyle Hines said of Deas’ play. “He was really aggressive.”
Senior Herbert Jones played 14 minutes, all in the second half, and scored 12 points on 6-9 shooting.
The Spartans’ starting line-up scored 85 of the team’s 92 points in the victory.
Guard Ricky Hickman poured in 24 points, Hines scored 21, forward Ronnie Burrell scored 19 and guard Ray Bristow scored 19.
Hines scored his 21 by shooting 90 percent from the field (9-10).
“I think this was our best performance of the season,” UNC-G head coach Fran McCaffery said. “I thought we played a near perfect game.”
The win for Greensboro snapped the team’s five game losing streak.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is No. 1 in the North with a 9-5 record. ASU is second place with an 8-6 conference record and UNCG is third place with a 7-7 conference record.
The top two teams in the division will receive a first-round bye in the SoCon tournament. Each team has two games left.
Chattanooga will play at East Tennessee State University (8-16, 4-10) and will host Furman University (15-10, 8-5) this week.
ASU will host Western Carolina University tonight at 7 p.m. (8-19, 3-11) and will play at Elon University (5-21, 3-10) Saturday.
The Spartans’ host Elon tonight and will play at Western Saturday.
For Appalachian to grab the No. 1 spot, the team needs to win its final two games and have UTC lose its final two games. Appalachian can clinch second place in the North Division with a win and a Spartan loss or by winning its final two games.
Appalachian would lose the tiebreaker to either team should ASU finish tied with Chattanooga or Greensboro.
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