Lamar sports information

BEAUMONT — Leading by as much as 11 in the second half, the men’s basketball team of Lamar (2-2) fought through a late push by Prairie View A&M (1-3) Saturday in a 74-67 victory in the Montagne Center.

The Panthers had closed the Big Red to just one point, 63-62, but the Cards closed out the game with an 11-5 run to preserve the victory.

“It wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take it,” said head coach Tic Price. “We played against a team that was very competitive. For the most part we competed as well, but they continually beat us off the dribble. Sometimes they played with five guards, and that can be a difficult matchup with a post player in we went answered with a small lineup, and I do think that we did a pretty good job. Prairie View shot around 38 percent for the game, and usually we feel pretty good about a defensive shooting performance like that, but we’ve got to do a better job at blocking out. We allowed way too many offensive rebounds.”

Jordan Hunter led the Cards in scoring with 19 points, and T.J. Atwood joined him in double figures with 16 points, eight rebounds, four steals, three assists, and one block. Edwin Jeudy had his first Cardinal double-double with 11 points and 11 boards, and Nick Garth poured in 10 points with two assists.

“The experience we have on this team showed at the end of this game,” said Hunter. “It came down to getting stops, communicating, and heart, and I think that we showed we had that at the end of the game.”

The opening tip went to Lamar but Prairie View was able to strike first with a driving layup on a Cardinal turnover. Lamar answered with back-to-back threes to lead 6-2, and the two teams traded punches for the next 10 minutes — the game was tied at 17-17 with 10:04 to go in the half. PVAMU took the next five points for its largest lead of the game, 22-17, forcing a timeout from Big Red that seemed to get LU back on track. The Cards scored five straight out of the timeout to tie the game at 22-22 and knotted it up again at 24-24 and 26-26 before taking a two-point lead, 28-26, on a Hunter layup with 3:01 to go. Lamar scored five of the final six points of the half to lead 33-27 at the break.

Aggressiveness in the paint early out of the halftime locker room allowed Prairie View to chip the Lamar lead down to four, but Atwood, Jeudy, and Hunter were determined to keep the Cards out front. The Big Red trio contributed with either a bucket or an assist on the next 11 Cardinal points and gave LU an 11-point lead, 44-33, with 13:34 to go.

Though Lamar had only four turnovers in the second half, most of those came over the next few minutes and were accompanied by missed shots by LU. The Cards saw their 11-point lead shrink to just four two minutes later, 46-44 with 11:11 to go, and that lead shrank even further to just three points, 51-48, with 8:13 left in the game. Three-pointers by Grehlon Easter and Jeudy stretched that lead back to seven, 59-52, with 5:49 left, but Prairie View wasn’t quite done. The Panthers outscored Lamar 10-4 over the next three minutes to pull within just one point, 63-62, with 2:06 left. The Cards called a timeout, and again that seemed to be enough to get LU back in sync. The Cards closed the game on an 11-5 run fueled by Garth, Hunter, and Atwood and Big Red clinched a 74-67 victory over Prairie View A&M.

Lamar returns to action on Monday at home against Arlington Baptist. The Cards and Patriots will tip off in the Montagne Center at 7 p.m.