Kaymarie Jones
The Paw Print
Adams State University junior, Mikey Hope, slammed 22 points in the basket to help the Grizzlies record an all-time best 125 points for their season opener at the 2013 Banker’s Classics in Plachy Hall on Saturday, November 9th against Portland Bible College, representatives from the National Christian Collegiate Athletics Association (NCCAA), and the Pacific Coast Athletics Conference (PCAC).
“My teammates set me up in positions to score and my shots fell through,” says the number twelve guard from Tacoma, Washington.
Four other Grizzlies made good use of the opportunity to score individual double digits. Senior, Bruno Machado, covered the court in 23 minutes and scored 19 points. DeQuan Jones, the junior from Brooklyn, New York, also added 19 points in just 13 minutes. Senior, Chuck Cole added 11, and Mike Hemsley added 10 points to round off the Grizzlies’ game-high double digits. Cole and Hemsley came in contact with the ball for 16 minutes and 11 minutes respectively. The Grizzlies took shots at 65% with 57% shots from the 3-point line and only 5 turnovers.
“Our first season game was good to get us going. It reassured us that we have enough talent to score as many points as we possibly can. However, as a senior, and the only returner from last year, I know our defense parameters and expectations, and we can’t allow teams to score 80 points, especially at our house. As the season goes on, games are going to get tougher and we need to take pride in being a defense-first mind set team. It may sound cliché, but defense win championships, and that is our ultimate goal,” Machado explained.
Machado and Hope had the most free throws of the game with Hope attempting 9 and making 7, while Machado attempted eight and made 7. Junior, Kenneth Morgan; senior, DaSean Anderson, and the junior from Indiana; Jaree Crawford, all pulled 9 points each. Junior, Rodney Nelson, and senior, Julian Scott, snatched 8 and 7 points respectively. Two quality points came from sophomore Okechukwu Arnold, the Abuja, Nigeria native.
“We got our first win at home, so the hard work that we’ve put in, on and off the court, helped us to get the win, but we have a long way to go.” Morgan noted.
Entering his fourth season as head coach for the Grizzlies, Louis Wilson believes that his team played extremely well, regardless of the level at which the Portland Bible College players are ranked; “Playing at 65% with only 5 turnovers is really hard to do. So, no matter how good or bad the other team is, we played really well offensively. We’re still not good defensively so we will have to make big strides defensively,” Coach Wilson explained.
This season, Adams State University was picked fourth in the conference behind Metro State University, Colorado School of Mines, and the number one ranked, Fort Lewis University. The Grizzlies finished the 2012-2013 season with an overall record of 20-10 and 16-6 in the conference, a score that was good enough for a second place tie with arch rivals, Fort Lewis University, in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC).
Coming up on November 19th, the Grizzlies will face Northern New Mexico College in Plachy Hall at 7pm.
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