MARS HILL, N.C. --- Sammy Emile scored a season-high 34 points to lead the Mars Hill men's basketball team to a 75-67 win over visiting Tusculum College in the South Atlantic Conference regular-season finale for both teams.
Tusculum (11-17, 8-10 SAC) finishes in a five-way tie for fourth place in the conference standings, while Mars Hill ends its season at 10-16 overall and 7-11 in the league. The Pioneers will be the No. 5 seed in this week's Food Lion SAC Tournament and will travel to No. 4 seed Newberry College on Wednesday for an 8 p.m. quarterfinal round match at Eleazer Arena.
Emile went 8-of-13 from the floor, 4-of-6 from three-point territory and 14-of-17 from the foul line. Dion Malachi scored 12 points, pulled down six rebounds and tied his career-high with seven blocks in the win. Dallas Johnson rounded out the double-digit scorers for MHC with 14. He hit a career-best four 3-pointers in the victory.
Senior Rob Troutman led Tusculum with 19 points and six boards, while junior Kevin Vest added 14 points and a career-best eight boards. Junior Tommy Klempin recorded 12 points and eight rebounds while going 8-of-10 at the foul line. Vest was 6-of-6 at the charity stripe as he went a perfect 18-of-18 in his two meetings this season against the Lions.
Emile hit a long-range three-pointer, 12 seconds into the contest and as the Lions led wire-to-wire.
MHC led by as many as 13 points (25-12) with 3:16 left in the first half after Emile hit another shot from beyond the arc as the Lions took a 30-20 lead into the locker room.
Solid shooting helped MHC keep the lead in the final period. After leading by 10 with 10:26 left in regulation, TC began chipping away at the lead. The Pioneers cut the deficit to six points (49-43) with 7:02 on the clock after Klempin nailed a pair of foul shots. MHC answered with a 13-8 run to take an 11-point (62-51) lead into the final 3:34 of the contest.
The Pioneers went on a 16-9 spurt of their own to cut the lead to just four points (71-67) when Vest connected on a couple of free throws with 27 seconds remaining. But that's as close as TC would get as the Pioneers were forced to foul and Emile went 5-of-6 from the stripe down the stretch and converted on a slam dunk to provide the final margin.
Tusculum out-rebounded the Lions by a 39-33 margin, but shot just 34.4 percent in the game, including 6-of-27 in the opening half (22.2%).
Troutman is closing in on a personal milestone as he needs 11 points to become the 22nd player in school history to score 1,000 points in his career.
- TC -
