ANDERSON, S.C. – The Anderson men's basketball team closed out the regular season with an 84-73 setback to Wingate, Saturday afternoon at the Abney Athletic Center.
The loss dampened Senior Day celebrations for Anderson (13-15, 11-11 SAC), which suffered its second straight loss, but posted wins in three of its final five regular-season contests. Wingate (19-9, 16-6 SAC) closed the regular season by winning five of its last six decisions, while earning the No. 3 seed in next week's South Atlantic Conference Tournament.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
Graduate student guard Lex Davis led the Trojans with a season-high 18 points, while sophomore guard Andrew Boynton added 15 second-half points. Junior guard Maurice Howard tallied 11 points, a season-high eight assists and equaled a career-high with nine rebounds.
HOW IT HAPPENED
First Half
Neither team was able to build more than a two-possession lead until the Bulldogs used a 9-2 spurt over a two-minute span to claim a 33-26 lead with 6:18 left in the half. But the Trojans countered with an 8-3 run of their own to climb within 36-34 with just 29 seconds on the clock, while Wingate finished the half with a pair of free throws to take a four-point halftime lead.
Second Half
The Trojans scored eight unanswered points early in the second half to knot the score for the fifth time of the afternoon, at 42-42, and the score was deadlocked three more times over the next 2:11. With the score even at 49 apiece, Wingate posted five straight points before the Trojans battled back to take their final lead of the afternoon (57-56) on a 3-pointer from Boynton.
Wingate regained the advantage less than a minute later and the Bulldog lead hovered between one and seven points over the next eight minutes before the visitors extended their cushion to double digits inside the final two minutes.
UP NEXT
The Trojans will compete in the South Atlantic Conference Tournament for the first time since the 2013-14 campaign as the No. 7 seed and will travel to Queens, which claimed the second seed with an 80-54 win over Tusculum. The Trojans and Royals are slated to square off Wednesday at 7 p.m.