The Chadron State College men’s basketball team fought hard until the final whistle, but despite outscoring its opponent from Black Hills State University 63 to 53 from the floor, the Yellow Jackets’ free throw shots overwhelmed the Eagles. CSC trailed by only four with 10 seconds remaining, but could not find the right formula to complete the comeback, in a 77-71 final on Senior Night in Chadron.

BHSU went to the line 36 times, versus CSC’s 10. Fourteen of those tries came in the final minute when the Eagles’ imperative was to stop the game clock, but the Yellow Jackets still led 22 to 8 in tries from the foul line going into the home stretch. Chadron State finished shooting 9-for-10 for the night, while Black Hills was 24-for-36.

“Our gameplan was to try and keep them off the line tonight,” said CSC Head Men’s Basketball Coach Houston Reed. “Some of those fouls came when we were giving them second opportunities. We gave up 11 offensive rebounds, and that’s brutal. You give up open threes and fouls when you do that.”

“It came down to several shots we didn’t make,” added Reed, “that we were more than capable of making.”

The game was tied at the half, 34-34. CSC led 48-41 just before the 10-minute mark in the second period, opening up its largest lead of the game.

That’s when the visitors got hot from three, draining three straight and drawing a foul in between for another three points from the charity stripe. The Yellow Jackets turned those fortunes into a 25-9 run putting them at their largest lead, 66-57, with 1:45 showing.

During that span, the Eagles were 4-of-11 from the floor and drew only two on-the-floor whistles to go without a shot at the line.

A pair of Colby Jackson three-pointers and one by senior forward Jeremy Ruffin allowed CSC to keep hope alive all the way to the end, but BHSU did just enough at the foul line to put the game away in the final 30 seconds.

For the winners, Dez Stoudamire shot 5-of-8 from the field, 2-of-4 from the arc, and poured in 11-of-15 free throws to lead his team with 23 points. Stefan Desnica added 20 on 8-of-11 shooting including 4-of-8 from three.

Senior Diontae Champion led the Eagles with 21 points, eight boards, and two blocked shots. He made seven of the Eagles’ nine foul shots.

Chadron State is now 11-14 overall and 9-10 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play.

CSC’s remaining schedule is on the road. Next weekend the team visits Colorado State University-Pueblo on Friday and New Mexico Highlands University on Saturday. Both teams lost twice this weekend on the road at RMAC regular season champ Colorado School of Mines and UCCS. CSUP is eliminated from postseason contention, while NMHU is in seventh place in the RMAC, two games ahead of the Eagles.

The Eagles’ season finale is at MSU Denver, who defeated both of the South Dakota schools by 20 points in Denver this weekend. They are one game behind Chadron State, tied for 10th.

Black Hills State made six three-pointers in the first quarter and five different players scored in double figures as they defeated Chadron State 85-57 Saturday night.

Three Eagle seniors, Mickenzie Brennan, Rebecca Stevenson and Savannah Weidauer were honored after the conclusion of the game.

“All of our seniors are great people with high character,” Raymer said. “It was an honor to coach them and I’m going to miss them.”

Chadron State led 10-9 in the first quarter before the Yellow Jackets made three straight three-pointers and took the lead, two being by Julia Seamans. Seamans finished with 11 points in the quarter.

Black Hills finished 25 of 60 from the field for 42 percent and made 12 of 28 shots from behind the arc for 43 percent.

CSC shot 22 of 56 for 39 percent and made 12 of its 18 free throws. The Yellow Jackets finished 23 of 31 from the charity stripe, for 74 percent.

The Eagles outrebounded Black Hills 39 to 35 but committed eight more turnovers with 24, which were turned into 38 Yellow Jacket points.

Three players scored in double-digits for Chadron State. Sophomores Taryn Foxen and Jessica Harvey led the team with 16 and 13 points respectively. Weidauer had a season high 12 points and Foxen led with seven rebounds.

Racquel Wientjes led Black Hills with 19 points, Seamans finished with 15, Morgan Ham scored 13 and Alyssia Martinez and Morgan Koepsell each had 11.

Chadron state falls to 4-21 on the year and 3-16 in the RMAC. The Yellow Jackets improve to 14-9 and 10-9 in the conference.

The Eagles return to action as they travel to Pueblo, Colorado, to face the Thunderwolves on Friday, February 22.

The visiting South Dakota School of MInes & Technology men’s basketball team could barely miss in the first half on Friday evening at Chadron State College, however the Eagles turned things around powerfully in the second half to rally from down 12 points at the intermission to top the Hardrockers 69 to 65 at home in front of 981 in attendance at the Chicoine Center.

The Eagles avenged an 80-59 loss just 13 days earlier in Rapid City, holding their guests to 5-of-22 from the floor and just 1-of-6 from three-point range in the second half, after the Hardrockers romped to a 40-28 lead in the first with 65.2 percent shooting and 6-of-7 from long range.

“My mentor Don Meyer wasn’t lying,” said CSC Head Men’s Basketball Houston Reed. “When you’ve lost a couple in a row, it doesn’t feel like you’ll win one again. I’m proud of our guys’ resiliency and how they bought into each other in the second half. Specifically we’ve challenged a lot of our guys, in the past five to seven days, to become better men. We talked about taking responsibility for your actions whether things go well or things don’t go your way. We were really upset about some of the defensive breakdowns we had in the first half. We weren’t defensively executing some stuff that we taught over and over and worked on Tuesday through Thursday. Our guys took the coaching and applied it on the floor, and that showed maturity.”

CSC missed its first seven looks from the floor in the opening six minutes, hitting just two of its first four free throws as SDSMT started on a 10-2 run. Freshman Mitchell Sueker, the Hardrockers’ leading scorer on the season, had eight of his team’s first 13 points before Eagles senior forward Jeremy Ruffin was able to lock him up for seven points, matched up in man-to-man defense, the rest of the way. Ruffin played 35 minutes, holding Sueker to less than half his scoring total of 32 against the Eagles in the teams’ previous matchup..

The Eagles closed it to 15-14 nearing the middle of the first period, before Mines guard Jack Fiddler, a junior, hit back-to-back threes to regain some of the Hardrockers’ distance. Chadron State maintained its deficit in single digits until Fiddler, who led his team with 17 points on the night, hit his fourth consecutive shot from beyond the arc with 18 seconds left until halftime to stretch it to 38-28.

Chadron State had a second half which was a polar opposite of its first half performance, creating a 20-point swing in the game by allowing its opponent only two of its 15 field goal tries to start the period. Meanwhile, seven different Eagles scored during that pivotal stretch to tie the game at 9:17 remaining and give their team its first lead with 7:26 to play.

Junior guard Michael Sparks, who had a game-high 18 points in the game, hit 3-of-4 threes in the second half and did not miss in four shots from the free throw line.

Senior Jaisean Jackson took a hard pass down the lane from classmate Diontae Champion for a layup to give CSC the edge for the first time at 50-49. The Eagles never relinquished that lead.

CSC survived one final gasp from the Hardrockers in the final four minutes, with Mines scoring on seven of eight possessions, however the visitors missed their final three field goals as Chadron State preserved the win with four consecutive free throws by Sparks and another junior guard, Colby Jackson.

“It feels good tonight,” said Ruffin. “We needed these five games that are left to get into the playoffs, so it’s feeling really good. All we talked about at halftime was getting stops one possession at a time, and the team stepped up.”

Champion, Ruffin, and senior forward Adoum Mbang each tied for team runner-up in scoring with nine points apiece. Ruffin and Champion each had a game-high seven rebounds, and Jaisean Jackson led both sides with five assists.

Mines guard Allec Williams, the team’s second-leading scorer on the season, was not present in Friday night’s game.

Chadron State improved to 11-13 on the season, marking its most overall wins in five years. The Eagles evened up their Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference ledger at 9-9 in league play. The nine conference wins are the program’s most since 2011-12, which also saw its last postseason appearance. This year’s team would need to win the remaining four regular season contests to match that season’s 13-9 mark in the RMAC.

Black Hills State University visits Saturday in a high-stakes matchup. The Eagles are teetering on the edge of playoff contention, tied for eighth in the league standings but owning a tiebreaker over Adams State. Black Hills, which lost Friday 72-51 at MSU Denver to snap a six-game win streak, is still in position to host an RMAC first-round tournament game, tied for third at 12-6 in league play. However the Yellow Jackets must host undefeated Colorado School of Mines among its final three contests, which are all in Spearfish, South Dakota.

Sami Steffeck scored 21 points and Anna Haugen had 16 points and 14 rebounds as the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology Hardrockers defeated the Chadron State women’s basketball team 64-52 Friday night.

“Haugen is quick, very aggressive and kept beating us to the hole. We had a hard time with her both nights we played them,” Raymer said.

The Hardrockers shot 50 percent in the second half and 44 percent for the game in the victory. Chadron State finished 22 of 58 from the field, for 38 percent.

“We didn’t finish well tonight,” Head Coach Janet Raymer said. “We shot poorly and didn’t move ball like we wanted to.”

Chadron State scored the first two points of the game on a pair of Haley Urbatsch free throws, but a three-pointer by Steffeck gave Mines the lead for good.

The Eagles recorded one more rebound than the Hardrockers with 33 and had one more turnover with 21. Chadron State committed 22 fouls compared to nine by Mines.

South Dakota Mines finished 12-15 from the charity stripe, while the Eagles made five of seven attempts.

Both teams scored 15 points off turnovers.

Jori Peters led CSC with 10 points and five assists, with only one turnover. Angelique Gall had a team high seven rebounds.

Steffeck shot 8-12 from the field, five being from three-point land. As a team, the Hardrockers had five assists.

Chadron State falls to 4-20 overall and 3-15 in the conference.

Chadron State hosts Black Hills State tomorrow. Three Eagle seniors will be honored in-between the men’s and women’s games.