Texans Rout Hill College, Advance to Semi-Final

March 8, 2009

LUBBOCK, Texas - The South Plains College Texans opened up the Region 5 Tournament against Hill College at Lubbock Christian's Rip Griffin Center and knocked off their opponent 86-54 to advance to the semi-final round.

With 15:42 left in the first half the game was knotted in a 7-7 tie. After the two teams made trips up and down the court without scoring, SPC's David Tairu came up with a steal and took it the other way to convert a field goal, sparking an 8-0 Texan scoring run.

Hill would narrow the score to four points at the 8-minute mark, but would not get closer than that as SPC would go to the locker room with a twelve point lead, 34-22.

The Texans continued to put pressure on Hill, extending their lead to 18 points in the first 6-minutes and 27-seconds. Hill would eventually cut the lead back to 12-points with 9:28 remaining, but that's as close as SPC would let them get as they went on huge scoring run, outscoring their opponent 32-12 for the remainder of the contest to win 86-54.

SPC was led by sophomore David Tairu who scored 25-points on 7-of-14 shooting. Tairu was also 9-of-9 from the charity stripe. Hugh Mingo added 21-points and five assists. Ladarius Hall (14-points) and Markhuri Sanders-Frison (10-points) also scored in double figures for the Texans.

South Plains will play tomorrow at 5 p.m. and will face the winner of today's 5 p.m. match-up of Western Texas and Collin County.