RiverHawks Stop Cameron on Senior Night
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. - Northeastern State behind Jason Jones and Marlon Burnett captured a 63-51 victory over Cameron on Senior Night Wednesday at Jack Dobbins Field House in a Lone Star Conference North Division clash.
The RiverHawks improve to 19-7 for the year and 10-1 in North Division play, while the Aggies are now 10-15 and 0-11.
Jones led the RiverHawks scoring with 17 points and 16 rebounds for his 10th double-double of the season. Burnett followed with 15 points with J.C. Snead and Antoine Branch adding 9 points each.
"We knew going in that this was going to be a demanding game," said Northeastern State head coach Larry Gipson. "The coaching staff at Cameron does an excellent job and we knew they would be ready to play.
"I thought we played just good enough to win. I'm not going to discount the fact we won, but it was an unemotional, uninspiring effort on our part.
"We told our team that we are playing for a championship on Saturday and any more uninspired unemotional performances and we are going home."
Gipson was pleased with the performance of Jones, saying, "Jason is the best rebounder in the league. He's had to rack-up more double-doubles than any player that I've ever coach."
The 13th year Northeastern State head coach was also pleased with the play of his two other seniors, Snead and Burnett.
"I thought Marlon played very well, and, J.C. got an opportunity to start and played well, also. I'm really pleased that our three seniors could go out with a victory here in their last home game," said Gipson.
Dominique Gaines, the RiverHawks leading scorer with an 18-point average, was held to just six points by the Aggies. It was the first time since joining the squad in mid-December that he was held below double-digit scoring.
Northeastern State shot only 39 percent from the floor (21-of-54), but was 11-of-15 at the free throw line. The RiverHawks held the Aggies to a 38 percent shooting performance (21-of-55) including 7-of-28 for behind the arc.
NSU dominated the boards, out-rebounding the Aggies 46-29, which included 13 offensive caroms.
The RiverHawks held a five-point lead at the intermission 34-29 and then cruised to a 19-point lead in the second half with 8:43 remaining 57-38. Cameron never led in the game.
Nikola Vukadinovic led the Aggies scoring with 16 points with Milton Garner adding 14.
