Seahawks put exclamation point on outright South Zone title

Published 12:05 am Thursday, February 25, 2016

Wednesday night turned into a party at the Parker Center.
The Lamar State College-Port Arthur Seahawks celebrated a Region XIV South Zone outright championship with a 78-55 victory over the Blinn College Buccaneers.
This year marks the second time ever the Seahawks won the outright South Zone title. LSC-PA first accomplished the feat in 2011-12, the season after winning the Region XIV tournament championship and making the NJCAA tournament.
“This is a good feeling to make history,” LSC-PA sophomore Jordon Harris said. “It feels good to bring it home to Port Arthur.”
Harris scored 20 points in his final game at the Parker Center and fellow sophomore Freddie Williams Jr. added a game-high 23 in the Seahawks’ (22-8, 13-5) win.
LSC-PA’s victory wrapped up the second seed in next week’s Region XIV tournament held in Lufkin. The Seahawks have a bye through the first round and do not play until Thursday, March 3.
“Last year hurt, and this year I wanted come back stronger because I knew this team would come back stronger,” Williams said. “I love it. We feel great with that bye. We feel nobody can stop us right now. We can get some rest and practice a little more and then face whatever comes our way.”
Blinn, the last South team to defeat the Seahawks, tried to hang around early against LSC-PA and were within five with 4:44 left in the first half. Williams then hit a three-pointer that sparked a 14-3 Seahawks run to end the first half with LSC-PA up 37-21.
The Seahawks started the second half on a 13-6 run, guided by another three from Williams and also one from freshman and West Orange-Stark graduate Chase Rutledge. LSC-PA led 50-29 by the time the Bucs (20-9, 9-9) put an end to the Seahawks streak.
The Seahawks waited a few minutes after the game to give coach Lance Madison a water bath to celebrate the historic win.
“We wanted to be straight-out champs and didn’t want to be co-champs,” Madison said. “We wanted to win it here at home. It has been a great home-court advantage for us all year. We went undefeated in the conference here at home and a lot of that is because of the support from the fans.”
Mambi Diawara finished with 17 points for the Seahawks. Nederland graduate Colton Weisbrod missed a good chunk of the game due to foul trouble. He finished with six points and eight rebounds.
One of the highlights of the night was every Seahawks player able to play scored.
The Seahawks won this zone championship with a group of eight players.
“If you have good chemistry and the guys play good defense, have a great IQ and have great fundamentals an eight-man rotation is what you need to win games,” Madison said. “Sometimes when you have all those players on the bench it can affect your chemistry. If everyone knows you are going to play, it is a good feeling.”

**CORRECTED to reflect that LSC-PA won the 2011-12 South Zone championship outright**

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About Gabriel Pruett

Gabriel Pruett has worked with both the Port Arthur News and Orange Leader since 2000. A majority of the time has been spent covering all aspects of Southeast Texas high school sports. Pruett's claim to fame is...being able to write his own biographical information for this website.

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