Texans hold off Blazers 83-81 Saturday

LEVELLAND — Ismail Habib and Elijah Tate combined for 45 points Saturday as the South Plains College men's basketball team won its fifth straight contest, clipping Dallas College-North Lake 83-81 at the Texan Dome.

The Texans improve to 6-1 on the season and will be back on the floor in Plano Nov. 25-26 at the Collin County Thanksgiving Classic. SPC will do battle with Collin County at 7 p.m. on Friday, followed by a 5 p.m. matchup against Hill College on Saturday. Both games will stream live at spctexans.com.

"You can see by this game why they (Dallas College) won a Div. III national championship last year," South Plains College head coach Hayden Sowers said. "They are well coached, they wouldn't go away, and we have a lot to learn. We were up by 15 with six minutes to go, and they had a shot to win it at the buzzer, but the most important thing is we're going to learn coming off a win. I'm proud of our guys for finding a way to pull out a win, but make no mistake, we have to get a lot better."

A one-possession game with under 17 minutes to play, South Plains extended its lead to eight, 58-50 on a free throw from Habib with 15:35 to play. The Texans would push their lead to 14, 74-60, on a jumper from Christian Coleman with under 10 minutes remaining. Jaden Harris would then give the Texans their largest lead of the contest, knocking down a free throw to put SPC up 85-60 with under six minutes left.

The Blazers would begin to make their push, trimming the deficit to nine, 80-71 on a layup from Brandon Lawrence with just over three minutes to go. Darion Jones would pull Dallas College within six, 82-76 on a 3 from the left wing with 2:14 to play. Lawrence would then get his team within a single bucket, dropping in a layup to bring the Blazers within one, 82-81 with under a minute remaining.

Following a foul from the Blazer's Da'Ryan Williams, Habib would knock down one of two free throws, giving Dallas College one last look with eight seconds to play. The Blazers got the ball to Williams for a 3 from the top of the key, but it would clank off the side of the rim as time expired.

"This game is going to teach us that we have to learn how to finish games down the stretch," Tate said. "We had a 15-point lead and let them get back in the game, and as a team, we have to learn from this and keep moving forward. This was a great test for us, and I was proud of our team that we found a way to win the game."

Habib finished with a season-high 26 points and seven rebounds, netting five of 15 shots from the floor and was 12 of 16 from the charity stripe. Tate provided 19 points coming off the bench for South Plains, knocking down four of 10 shots from the field and was eight of nine from the free throw line.  Christian Coleman finished with 12 points and five rebounds as the Texans shot a 43.8 percent clip from the field and forced 18 turnovers on the defensive end.