February 18, 2021 – Dallas, TX –
The Southwestern Adventist University Knights came into tonight’s matchup against the Dallas Christian College Crusaders as the underdogs. During the regular season, the Knights and Crusaders met twice with the Crusaders taking both games in dominant 20+ point fashion. Dallas Christian also had home advantage, even though playing in a play-in game. Tonight was the opener to the NCCAA DII post season kicking off with Southwest Region Conference Play In Game.
Dallas Christian looked to pull ahead in the first half with Reggie Daniels and Elijah Barth leading the way in points. Combined, the two scored 23 out of the 38 points scored in the first half. The Knights had no problem causing turnovers in the first half as they finished the half with 11 total steals as a team. Where the Knights struggled most was converting turnovers into points as they shot about 37% from the field in comparison to DCC’s 54%. The 1st half ended with DCC up 38-32.
Whatever was said in the SWU Knights locker room must have worked as multiple players turned it up a notch. One of those players was Sitivi Fehoko whom scored 14 of his 17 points in the second half. Even with his huge impact in the second half, it would Justin Lamb that would seal the victory for the Knights. With 10 seconds to go in the game, the Knights were down 67-69. With about only 2 seconds on the clock, Lamb was fouled by the Crusaders Jalen Perez while shooting a three-pointer. Lamb then sank all three free throws to put the Knights ahead 70-69. The Crusaders would fail to score in the last two seconds after a last-hope 3-point shot by Versache Buchanan would fail to connect. The final score would stay 70-69 with the SWU Knights advancing to the first round of the Southwest Region Tournament.
The Knights will be back in action Thursday February 25th, 2021 at 6:30pm CST. They will face the #1 seed from the North Division Barclay College. All games from the NCCAA DII Southwest Region Conference Tournament are streamed live at www.team1sports.com/DCC/.
