Rough second half dooms male Stars

By Michael Leek
Sports Editor

After being outscored by 29 points in the second half, the LCC men’s basketball team to Glen Oaks Community College, 102-65, on Wednesday, Feb. 7.

This loss puts the Stars’ overall record under .500 at 10-11 on the season. They are 1-6 in MCCAA conference play.

Freshman forward Jamison Eklund and sophomore guard Jay Wallace led the Stars in scoring with 19 points each.

Stars Head Coach Mike Ingram said his team started the game off OK, but wasn’t playing together in the first half. Glen Oaks completely took over in the second half.

“We weren’t playing together on defense or offense and we are a team that has to be on the same page to be successful,” Ingram said.

The team members wanted to try a new approach to how they were playing. Ingram said he told them: “Well, show me.”

Said Eklund: “Our new approach was kind of just letting players do what they wanted to do and that really didn’t work for us at all, so were going to go back to the way coach wants to do it.”

One of the things that has been hurting the Stars is not having much of a bench and, specifically, a backup point guard to Devan Wilson, Ingram said.

“It’s a lot of work for one guy to play point guard for 40 minutes,” Ingram said. “Devan does a good job but he works so hard and plays so hard that he has to get tired. (He) tries to play over that, but it's been really tough.”

The team has tried to move some people around in different positions and has been working on adjustments to help out.

“I think except for this past game we’ve been in every single game,” Ingram said. “We play 37 or 38 minutes of great basketball but our two to three minutes of bad basketball has been really bad … I think that we just get tired.”

Eklund added: “Fatigue does play a factor but not that big of a factor. I think that late in the game the fatigue starts to kick in, but if you have a strong mindset you’ll be perfectly fine.”

The Stars’ next game will be against the best team in the conference, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, this Saturday Feb. 10 at home.

In their first game this season, LCC lost to Kalamazoo 117-94, but LCC is looking to win this game, and also finish the last five games of the season strong.

“Were going to be trying to win,” Ingram said. “I’ve been telling the team that and guys just have to do what we’ve been working on all year.”