McNeese holds off Southeastern, 69-66

LAKE CHARLES – Christian Shumate recorded his third straight double-double behind 14 points and 11 rebounds and McNeese dominated the boards 45-26 in a 69-66 victory over first place Southeastern Louisiana in a key Southland Conference men’s basketball game on Thursday night in front of 2,112 fans at the Legacy Center.

Trae English led four Cowboys (6-19, 3-9) in double-figures with 15 points while Harwin Francois scored 13 and Zach Scott 10. Johnathan Massie grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds with four of those off the offensive glass. Southeastern (14-11, 8-4) was led by Boogie Anderson’s 21 points.

“We found a way to finish it out tonight,” said an elated John Aiken. “Now we have to build on it and continue to move forward.”

McNeese led 36-34 at the half, the seventh time in the last 10 conference games to hold the lead at the break. But unlike on Thursday night, McNeese, who entered the day on a nine-game losing streak, was unable to close out games with under five minutes remaining.

That changed in front of the home crowd.

Trailing 51-49 with 10:45 to play, Shumate took charge and scored the next eight points for the Cowboys to help his team mount an 8-0 run and grab a 57-51 lead with 8:14 remaining.

“That wasn’t by plan, that just happened to fall my way and I executed,” said Shumate who has nine double-doubles on the season and 14 in his career.

Southeastern scored four straight to cut the margin to 57-55 but an English driving layup was followed by a Massie fall-away jumper to increase the lead back to six points at 61-55 with 6:12 left on the clock.

The lead grew to nine points a 67-58 after a couple of Massie free throws with 3:29 left but the Lions quickly answered with a 7-0 run to make it a 67-66 game after a Nick Caldwell jumper with 35 seconds to play.

Scott answered by making 1 of 2 free throws to put the Cowboys up 68-66 with 27 seconds to play, then Shumate made the safe of the game when he dove on a loose ball following an Anderson miss, tying the ball up and giving the Cowboys the possession with 1.9 seconds left.

The Cowboys were able to get the ball into play and Francois shut the door after making 1 of 2 free throws with 1.4 seconds remaining. Southeastern’s 75-foot desperation fell way off the mark at the buzzer.

“I had a feeling it would come down to a 50-50 ball,” said Aiken. “And we were going to need somebody to step up and dive on the floor for it. Probably for the first time in his career Christian did that and got us possession.”

The Cowboys connected on 43 percent for the game (24-56) and hit 8 of 22 from three-point range for 36 percent. McNeese was decent at the free throw line by making 13 of 20 for 65 percent but made them when they needed them most.

The Lions shot 47 percent (26-60) from the floor, 5 for 15 (33 percent) from three-point range and was just 5 of 13 (39 percent) at the free throw line.

McNeese will next be in action on Saturday when it visits New Orleans at 4 p.m. before returning home next Thursday versus Incarnate Word.