CHEYENNE, WY – The Laramie County Community College men's basketball team put up a strong fight but fell short in a 76-71 loss to Air Force Prep to begin the 2024 portion of their schedule on Tuesday night at Storey Gym.
The Golden Eagles went into the game shorthanded, missing two starters, but saw a big contribution from their bench with Davion Butler and Phoenix Bullock helping lead the offense early and keep the Huskies close after AFP went on a pair of early 6-0 runs to take a 12-7 lead.
LCCC settled into a groove as the quarter continued, looking to their leading scorer Jordan Reed, who paced the team to a 25-20 lead midway through the first with what would turn into a 14-point half for the sophomore.
As expected, AFP would close the gap and tied the game at 29 all only to see the Golden Eagles again pull ahead, this time on a 6-0 run of their own, capped by Daniels second three of the half to make it 35-29.
The Huskies showed their poise by rolling off a 16-7 run of their own in the final four minutes to go into the break up 45-42.
The second half was a much more methodical pace for both teams. LCCC was down a third member of their team after Kamrohn Roundtree left with a leg injury in the first half, and with only seven players splitting minutes for the Golden Eagles and just nine players seeing the court for Air Force, neither group was pushing the pace.
The lead echoed this.
The Huskies maintained their advantage through nearly the entire half, only seeing the game tied once with 10 minutes to go when Butler evened the scoring on a three, but that would be the closest LCCC would get all half.
On the flip side, the Golden Eagles never let Air Force Prep get any further away, always having an answer back, but after closing the gap to 68-67 on a Daniels stepback two from just inside the three-point line, LCCC never was able to tie the game and the Huskies made their free throws down the stretch to close out the 76-71 win.
The offense was led by Jordan Reed who finished with a game-high 19 points to go with four assists and five rebounds.
Three other Golden Eagles finished in double figures including 14 from Abdullah Mahamed who had seven in both halves, ten from Davion Butler, and a career high 16 from Justin Daniels who also made a career high four threes in the game.
Butler and Ejay Scroggins led the team in take aways with three steals each and the team only turned the ball over eleven times.
Shooting wise, LCCC finished 43.5 percent from the field and 37 percent from three on 10-27 shooting. They also went 7-11 from the foul line in the game.
LCCC will be back on the road on Saturday when they travel to Air Force Prep's home gym for a game against West Point Prep on the neutral site. Tipoff of that game is scheduled for 6:00 pm. No streaming is available currently, but if links do become available, they will be posted at www.golccc.com.