Box Score
SAN ANTONIO — St. Mary's Men's Basketball held on in nail-biting fashion against the Newman University Jets Thursday night at Bill Greehey Arena.
JJ Bolton's free throw with 3.8 seconds left — his only point of the night — gave the Rattlers a one-point lead, which almost evaporated in the blink of an eye as Jeremy Espinoza's half-court attempt looked good as time expired.
But Newman's desperation buzzer-beater rimmed out, allowing the Rattlers to pull out a narrow 67-66 victory before a raucous crowd of nearly 250.
"It was a highly competitive game, which we knew it would be," said St. Mary's head coach
Jim Zeleznak, whose Rattlers saw the score change nine times with 11 ties. "We've come down to the wire with these guys the past two years. From a conference-tournament standpoint, they're in a must-win situation; we knew those guys would give us their best shot. It was just a matter of whether our guys would step up and accept that challenge."
Justin Alexander (Jr., San Antonio) led the efforts for the Rattlers with a career-high 19 points and 13 rebounds.
Marvin Binney (Jr., Toronto, Ontario) also had an impressive showing for the Rattlers, chipping in nine points, three boards, four assists and two steals.
In the first few minutes of the first half, the Jets got off to a quick start leading by as much as five.
A 3-pointer from
Marvin Whitt (Jr., Birmingham, Ala.), a turnover from the Jets, and a shot from Alexander was the turning point of the first half, as the Rattlers pushed ahead and outscored the Jets 23-18 for the duration of the frame.
The Rattlers maintained their lead in the half and led by as much as eight with great efforts shown by Binney and Bolton (Jr., Beaumont, Miss.), who chipped in six boards and three steals collectively.
The Rattlers led the Jets 33-28 at the break.
As the second half got underway, the Jets battled back to tie the game and take the lead eight times throughout the course of the second half.
But the Rattlers' resiliency shone through with big blocks from Alexander,
Fred Wilson (Sr., Seattle), and
Joe Monroe (R-Jr., San Antonio), and large contributions off the bench from
Ryan Thomas (Jr., Riverton, Utah) and Monroe.
"I thought that Monroe and Thomas came off the bench, particularly in the second half and made some big plays for us when we were really struggling," Zeleznak said. "That was one of our keys tonight; we got some good production out of our third and fourth post guys."
The Rattlers dominated the Jets in rebounds (48-26), paint points (50-28) and second-chance points (22-10).
This victory improves the Rattlers' record to 14-4 on the season and 7-3 in Heartland Conference play, while moving the Jets to 7-12 on the season and 4-7 in conference play.
This game also puts the Rattlers in sole possession of third place in the Heartland Conference standings, staying one game behind UA Fort Smith for second place and two games behind league-leader Texas A&M International.
Contributing off the bench for the Rattlers were Thomas and Monroe, who scored eight points and pulled in six and four rebounds, respectively.
Looking ahead, the Rattlers will host Oklahoma Panhandle at 3 p.m. Saturday at Bill Greehey Arena.
"We're not at the point where we can look anywhere past what's directly in front of us," Zeleznak said. "Oklahoma Panhandle's record is very deceiving. They've played a lot of teams close and they are very athletic."
