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DOUGLAS — DeAngelo Jones scored 31 points, Marcus Williams added 23 and the Cochise College Apaches held off a furious Artichoke rally over the last three minutes to beat Scottsdale, 90-87 Saturday night on the Douglas Campus.
A Jamiko Verner steal and kickahead to Mike Mayo for a three that put Cochise up 85-71 with 3:11 to play accounted for the 32nd Scottsdale turnover of the night and seemingly put the game out of reach.
But the Artichokes, ranked 11th nationally in the Division II Juco rankings, had one more burst, hitting three consecutive threes as the Cochise offense stalled. When Danny Thomas knifed into the lane and scored with 32 seconds left, the Cochise lead was trimmed to 88-87.
Verner hit a pair of foul shots to extend the Cochise lead to three and Anthony Urrutia’s shot to tie flew over the rim to preserve the Cochise win.
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“We’re young and immature so we don’t really know how to close these kinds of games out yet,” Cochise head coach Jerry Carrillo said. “To (Scottsdale’s) credit, their defensive energy got better after they made a couple of threes and some of those threes — they hit some bombs.”
The win improved Cochise’s record to 5-2 overall and 2-0 in ACCAC play heading into a non-conference game Wednesday at home vs. the Sierra Vista Stars.
Cochise spent most of the night on the brink of blowing the game open. But after the Apaches couldn’t close the deal in the first half, they found themselves down by six a minute into the second.
That’s when Brandon MacLellan, a freshman forward from Buena, made his presence felt. His face-up swish from 15 feet capped an 8-2 Cochise run to put the Apaches back up 53-51. After Scottsdale tied it, MacLellan sized up a 17-footer and nailed it to put Cochise up 55-53. The Apaches wouldn’t trail again.
MacLellan scored six of his eight points in the second half and had three rebounds to boot.
With sophomore Victor Reid out until January with a broken wrist, freshman power forward Demetrius Thornton likely to redshirt with a knee injury and the 6-foot-8 tandem of Eric Neely and Jason Holmes mostly ineffective in the offensive post, the contribution from the 6-foot-3 MacLellan was vital.
“He needs to get better defensively, but Brandon is a good offensive player,” Carrillo said. “He can finish and he’s got a good midrange jump shot. The ball’s in his court right now.”
A whopping 76 of Cochise’s 90 points came from the backcourt, which has to be an area of concern for the Apaches.
Mike Mayo scored 10 of his 15 in the first eight minutes and Verner added four points, six assists and seven steals, though the freshman point guard from Denver had eight of Cochise’s 26 turnovers.
Neely had a strong game defensively, pulling down seven rebounds.
“We didn’t close it out but I think it was some of our youthful mistakes,” Carrillo said. “These guys are going to be good when all is said and done. These guys are bought in to the system which is what is different from last year.”
Cochise women get first conference win
DOUGLAS — Egle Karolyte scored 18 points and Selena Flores 15 to lead the Cochise College women’s basketball team to its first conference win of the season, 73-68 over Scottsdale Community College.
Like the men, the Cochise women watched a 14-point lead disappear as Scottsdale hit three threes a minute apart to cut the margin to four.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” Cochise head coach Steve Lane said. “We saw better defense tonight than when we played Pima (Wednesday). We had more energy.”
Sylwia Janas had 11 points and former Buena High player Zelenia Pellat had eight for the Apaches who improved to 3-5 on the season and 1-1 in conference despite committing 34 turnovers.
The Lady Apaches are next in action Dec. 3 at home against South Mountain Community College.
keep it real wrote on Nov 27, 2008 8:55 AM: