LONGVIEW, Texas – For one final time during the 2017-18 season, the LeTourneau University men's basketball team put on a show for the home crowd and breezed to a 118-81 victory over an overmatched Belhaven University squad inside of Solheim Arena on Saturday, February 10th.
The win marks LETU's 20th victory to move to 20-3 overall and 14-2 in the American Southwest Conference while the Blazers fell to 4-19 overall and 2-14 in the ASC.
"This is a special group of young men" said head coach
Dan Miller in a post-game interview. "They get more excited when one of their teammates does well and it was great to feel the togetherness and support for the seniors." "All five of the seniors played a great game and demonstrated excellent leadership tonight." "They are such great examples of the YellowJacket way and so important to our program's success!" "It was truly a great night at Solheim Arena, but now we have to focus and get ready to be road warriors."
Scoring almost at will, LeTourneau finished the game 43-for-74 (58.1 percent) and hit 13-of-26 (50 percent) of their three points attempts in the game. A plus 14 advantage on the rebounding tally (45-31) would be coupled with a 58-14 advantage in points in the paint as the YellowJackets led by as many as 40 in the game.
All five seniors for LETU finished in double-figures with
Caylab Herrera leading the way with 26 points and two blocks.
Justin Eadeh finished with a career-high 15 points and hauled in 12 rebounds while
Alec Colhoff and
Sam Talbert each had 13 points.
Cordele Jackson rounded out the group with 11 points and one assist to go with one block while freshman
Javaughn Dantzler joined the five of them with 10 points. Belhaven found themselves with five players in double-figures led by Terik Richardson with 16 points.
The three ball was working early for the YellowJackets, hitting five treys in the first six minutes of action to race out to a 19-6 lead with Belhaven having no answer for the five senior starters. LeTourneau's lead would grow to 15 at the 10:04 mark in the first half following a
Christian Seidl layup from
Justin Moore before
Nate West added a layup as LETU would go up 29-12 heading into the final nine minutes of the opening period. The lead would grow to 20 on a pair of Colhoff free throws with 5:27 remaining in the first half as LeTourneau opened up a 29-point lead and led by 26 at intermission after scoring 53 points in the opening frame.
A statement would be made to open the second half with the lead growing to 72-32 with 15:57 left in the game after a Herrera layup with LETU in full control and well on their way to victory. Belhaven would use an 11-2 run over a span of 1:53 to get the YellowJacket lead down to 79-49, but it would get pushed right back out to 89-51 with 10:45 remaining as
Seth Mattson would drain a three off a pass from Dantzler.
LeTourneau would then start to get fresh legs in the game to start preparations for a quick turnaround next week as the 100-point barrier would be broken with 5:44 remaining in the game on a Talbert layup before head coach
Dan Miller would allow for each senior to get their own curtain call in the final minutes. The YellowJacket lead would never dip below 27 in the second half, with LETU nearly matching their largest lead of the game in the final minute while scoring a season-high in points.
An all-important showdown that will likely decide the American Southwest Conference East Division is in store on Monday evening when the YellowJackets make the trip down Highway 80 to renew their annual rivalry with East Texas Baptist University. Tip-off will be at 7:30 p.m. with LETU needing a win to keep the Tigers from holding the season tiebreaker. As things currently stand, LeTourneau is one game up on ETBU in the conference standings.
