Seahawks are on the road Saturday at Blinn College

[LamarStatesports]

The Lamar State College-Port Arthur men’s basketball team will try to get on the winning track Saturday, when they travel to Brenham for a 4 p.m. conference game against Blinn College.

Lamar State’s season-opening eight-game win streak ended Nov. 24 at San Jacinto College, the No. 11-ranked junior college team in the nation.

After that 19-point loss, the Seahawks had a week off, but came out flat Wednesday in Port Arthur and trailed by 14 points at halftime against Region XIV rival Angelina College.

The Roadrunners extended that lead to 23 points midway through the second half. The Seahawks slowly worked their way back, tying the game at the four-minute mark and taking a three-point lead a minute later only to lose, 78-75, in the closing seconds of the game to drop to 8-2 overall and 1-2 in Region XIV action.

Head coach Matt Cross was disappointed with his team’s performance.

“I was surprised the way we played the first 25 minutes,” he said. “Yet even when we got down 23 points, I knew we still were in the game because of who we were playing.”

Cross said his players showed a lot of fight to erase the big deficit and take the lead.

“But after we took the lead, I was disappointed how we played the final two minutes by immediately allowing Angelina an offensive rebound, missing three lay-ups, two one-and-one free throws and turning the ball over,” he said.

Cross said the team now should understand why Region 14 is the toughest junior college conference in the nation.

“You have to be ready to play every time you hit the floor regardless of the conference opponent,” he said. “Losing a conference game at home really puts you behind the eight ball. The cardinal rule in conference play is you have to win two games on the road to make up for one home loss. We must keep all these things in perspective as we prepare for Blinn. If we do that, we can pick up our second conference win Saturday.”

Blinn (6-4, 0-1) lost 87-83 in overtime Wednesday to Jacksonville College

The Seahawks have two non-conference games left in 2009 – on the road at Delgado Community College in New Orleans (Dec. 7) and at Lone Star College-Tomball (Dec. 12).

Lamar State returns to action at home Jan. 4 against Delgado, followed two days later with a home conference game with Jacksonville College.