NAIA

[Men's Basketball] #2 PILOTS DOWN #20 EAGLES FOR RRAC CHAMPIONSHIP

The #2 LSUS Pilots are your Red River Athletic Conference Regular Season Champions after defeating #20 TAMU-Texarkana 78-67 on the road to wrap up conference play. Shreveport finishes off their conference schedule at 6-1 on the season and their overall record to conclude the year at 14-1. The Pilots will be the top-seed going into the RRAC Tournament next week.FIRST HALFThe Pilots dominated the first ten minutes of the game as they stormed out of the gates. Leondre Washington was hot early as he knocked down four threes to help the Pilots surge to a 33-12 lead at one point. TAMUT would make some major adjustments and slow the pace of the game down while moving into a zone and it worked to slow the Pilots. The Eagles would cut the Pilots lead down to 39-26 going into the break. Shreveport's defense held Texarkana to just 33% from the field in the first half. Washington was the leading scorer at the break with 14 points.SECOND HALFThe final 20 minutes of the game was tightly contested as the Eagles made a valiant comeback effort. They cut the Pilots lead down to just two points but the ever realiable Jeff Boyd was there to help the Pilots fight off defeat. Boyd knocked down numerous shots for Shreveport down the stretch and had a couple of big defensive plays including a block late that helped seal the Conference Title for the Pilots. Boyd, tonight's Player of the Game, finished with 20 points, including five made three-pointers and four rebounds. He blocked two shots and had two steals to propel the Pilots to thier 78-67 win. Leondre Washington would finish with a game-high 22 points and five threes of his own. Kadavion Evans was the only other Pilot in double-digits with 13 points. KD generated a game-high eight assists for the Pilots. THOUGHTS FROM HEAD COACH KYLE BLANKENSHIP"I'm just really happy for our guys! They've continued to work hard despite the covid shutdowns, rescheduled games, lost games and everything else this year has thrown at us including a generational snow storm last week!""We played our tails off tonight. Left it all on the floor and now can stake our claim among The other great LSUS championship teams."