CONWAY, Ark. - After earning AMC Defensive Player of the Year honors,
Lavel Harris showed that he was also up to the task offensively as he led the Owls with 15 points, but William Woods (12-16) came up short in overtime against Central Baptist (24-6), falling 79-71 to the Mustangs in Saturday's AMC Men's Basketball Tournament presented by Tandem HR semifinal game.
Harris hauled in a defensive rebound and added a pair of steals before capping off an 8-0 Woods run to start the game.
Tre Titus joined in the swipe party, picking the pocket of Kyle Harding and finding Harris on the break to extend WWU's lead to 14-5 midway through the first half.
The Owls extended their first half lead as far as 11 points, leading 24-13 with 6:47 left in the half on the strength of a
Ty'Shon Pannell three-pointer. Unfortunately, Woods missed five of its last six field goal attempts in the half and took just a two-possession lead - 33-28 - into the locker room.
With Woods missing on both of its first two field goal attempts in the second half, CBC was able to tie the game at 33-33 with just under two minutes played in the period, but the Owls shook off the slow start and slowly pulled out to a 62-50 lead.
But as soon as the Owls hit that plateau with 3:33 left in the game, a spate of bad fortune landed on WWU's plate.
Francis Okwuosah was whistled for a foul with 3:04 to play, sending Sage Borbon to the line. After knocking down the first, he missed the second but Jonas Carlisle was able to recover the offensive rebound and feed Borbon for an open triple. The roles reversed after an offensive foul, with Borbon finding Carlisle for the three, closing a 12-point margin to five in 64 seconds.
Woods tried to hold the Mustangs off, and even had a chance to win it at the buzzer, but
Joey Brown IV's long three was just off the mark to send the game to overtime tied 64-64.
CBC controlled the tip and Woods picked up a stop to begin the extra frame, but the Owls couldn't capitalize on the defensive rebound as the Mustangs forced a turnover, with Wade Williams knocking down a three.
A Harris jumper leveled the game briefly at 70-70 with 1:50 left in the first overtime, but Williams again found net from distance. Woods was only able to respond with a single free thrown make by
Henry Shannon III to bring the score to 73-71 before CBC closed it out with a Borbon layup and a couple of garbage-time dunks.
The Owls held a small shooting advantage (46.7 percent/28-60 to 42.6 percent/23-54) over the Mustangs, but again struggled to overcome a large discrepancy in free throw attempts. Woods was whistled for 28 fouls, sending CBC to the line 33 times (with 23 makes) to just 17 fouls against the Mustangs and 17 trips to the line (10 makes) for WWU.
William Woods finishes its season with a 12-16 overall record.
