Apaches News
Sat, Mar 6, 2010 - [Men's Basketball]
By CHARLES RICHARDS
TYLER - Seventh-seeded Tyler saw an 11-point lead fritter away in the final eight minutes, but held on to beat No. 10 seed Lon Morris 62-60 Thursday night in the Region XIV tournament behind Malcolm Moore's strong inside play.
Moore scored 19 points and battled Lon Morris" Joel Gierbolini , who scored 21 points for the Bearcats before fouling out with 48 seconds to play.
Tyler's 57-46 lead all but disappeared on a 9-0 Lon Morris run over a five-minute period. Gierbolini made two free throws, Antoine Brown drained a 3-pointer, and Travis Jones and Gierbolini added baskets that pulled Lon Morris to within 57-55 with 5:08 to play.
Moore made one of two free throws for a 62-57 lead with 48 seconds left in the game, but Brown needed only five seconds to throw up a 3-pointer that cut Tyler's lead to 62-60.
Lon Morris' pressure defense forced Tyler to call time out with 23.7 seconds on the clock and a referee ready to blow a whistle for failure to get the ball past midcourt within 10 seconds.
After the timeout, Tyler again had trouble, and was this time called for the 10-second violation, with 12.9 seconds left to play.
Lon Morris could not get off a clean shot, however, and Tyler forced a turnover with three seconds left and ran out the clock.
Tyler led at the half, 30-28. The Apaches jumped out to a 12-2 lead, but Greg Chiasson hit two 3-pointers late in the first half to cut Tyler's lead to two points.
Tyler (18-10) plays No. 2 seed Navarro (25-5) at 6 p.m. Saturday in the quarterfinals. Lon Morris finishes with a 16-15 record.
