Hawkins - In a one-game battle for all the conference marbles on Monday night, No. 11 Houston Baptist University withstood every challenge to defeat No. 20 Jarvis Christian College 91-82 in an intense regular season finale at the E.W. Rand Center. The win gives the Huskies their ninth consecutive Red River Athletic Conference title and locks up the top seed in this week's RRAC Tournament as well as an automatic berth into the NAIA National Tournament.
HBU and Jarvis went back and forth for the first 10 minutes before an 11-1 run by the Huskies gave them a 39-29 lead with just over three minutes to go in the half. Jarvis came right back however, cutting the lead to five 42-37 at the break.
In the second half, the two teams continued to slug things out, trading leads for the duration. HBU trailed by four with a little over seven minutes to go, but used an 8-0 run to take a four-point lead, highlighted by six points from Dwight Jones II. The Huskies never trailed after that, pulling away down the stretch for the hard-fought victory.
HBU shot 46 percent on the night from the floor, but pounded the ball into the paint all night long. The Huskies went 28-38 from the charity stripe for 74 percent. The Huskies forced 21 turnovers on the evening, and outrebounded the Bulldogs 41-34.
Dwight Jones II paced the Huskies with a career-high 34 points, including a 15-20 performance at the stripe. Todd Henry had 20 points, 11 rebounds and three assists, while Kevin Amend provided a lift off the pine with 14 points and six rebounds.
Ronald Wells had eight points, nine boards, a game-high eight assists and three steals.
Demarion Crite had 23 points and James Woodson had 22 points and seven assists to lead the losing effort for the Bulldogs, who finish the regular season at 25-5 and 14-4 in the conference. The Bulldogs will be the second seed in the tournament this week.
Houston Baptist finishes off the regular season with a 21-5 mark overall and a 15-3 ledger in conference play.
NEXT OPPONENT: HBU will face Bacone College in the first round of the Red River Athletic Conference Tournament on Thursday afternoon in Waxahachie. The first round will be played at Waxahachie High School, with the semifinals and final moving to the Shaefer Center on the campus of Southwestern Assemblies of God University.
The Huskies captured both meetings in the regular season against the Warriors. HBU defeated Bacone 75-61 in Houston on January 6, then won in Muskogee, Oklahoma 86-71 on February 10. HBU leads the all-time series 8-2.
