The Lakeland Lakers men's basketball team played host to the Edison State Chargers on Saturday and came away with a 68-62 victory. With the victory, the Lakers improved their record to 15-6 overall and 7-1 within the conference. Edison State's record fell to 12-10 and 5-3 in the OCCAC. The Lakers now sit two wins ahead of Columbus State (5-1 in OCCAC) in the race for first place in the OCCAC. This was a tight contest throughout much of the game as the Lakers led by just one point at the half (32-31), before pulling away in the second half for the win. The key to the victory was the balanced scoring attack for Lakeland as they had 10 different players register points. Lakeland's bench outscored the Chargers bench 28-18.
Overall, it was not a great shooting night for the Lakers as they shot just 4-16 (25%) from the arc and 12-22 (54.5%) from the free throw line. However, the Lakers did shoot over 54% from the field in the second half in order to spurn the victory. Tyreke Johnson led all Laker scorers with 17 points. Chris Richardson scored 6 points and had 8 rebounds while Jonny Bowers added 8 points and 5 rebounds. Off the bench, Keith Germain scored 9 points on 4-5 shooting, Jordan Burge added 8 points on 3-6 shooting, and Tyshaun Howard pitched in 6 points on 2-4 shooting.
Bowe Bytes: "I thought Edison had a solid game plan and we were able to adjust late. We had good leadership from Tyreke and Jonny down the stretch. Even though we didn't shoot well from the line, we were able to hit them down the stretch. We have two tough road games next week; we just need to turn the page and keep working to improve."
Up next: The Lakers will hit the road next week for two games against conference foes. On Wednesday, the Lakers travel to Terra State for a 7:30 tip. On Saturday, they travel to Clark State to play the Eagles at 3:00 pm.
release
