Seahawks open 2011 on the road Wednesday

[LamarStatesports]

The Lamar State College-Port Arthur men’s basketball team begins the second half of their 2010-11 season Wednesday night at conference rival Angelina College in Lufkin.

Lamar State is 13-2 overall and 2-2 in Region XIV action after closing 2010 with a conference win at Lee College followed by four home non-conference victories.

Head coach Matt Cross hopes to see his team continue the success they had in the first half of the season.

“I believe 2011 will special for this team. The sky is the limit for this group, and I really enjoy coaching them,” Cross said. “We have a couple weeks before classes start. So, we will take advantage of all the extra practice time to make the necessary strides in forming a championship team.

Four Seahawks began the year ranked in the Top 15 players in the nation.

Sophomore guard Vonn Jones is No. 9 in assists with 7.43 per game.

Freshman forward David Laury is No 10 in rebounding (10.17 rpg), and sophomore guard Dion Waiters is No. 10 in steals (3.43 spg)

Sophomore wing Keenen Coleman is eleventh in scoring with 20.72 points per game.

Four other Seahawks have double-figure scoring averages – David Laury (17.75), sophomore guard Roman Vaughn (12.29), Vonn Jones (11.85) and injured freshman guard Markens Charles, who was hitting 11.3 ppg before he broke his wrist Nov. 29.

Lamar State’s hopeful return to the Region XIV post-season tournament won’t be an easy one. The Seahawks have 15 games left, all with conference teams.

Five Region XIV basketball teams started the year ranked in the Top 30 junior college teams in the nation.

San Jacinto is No. 3 after going 14-0, including four conference wins.

Trinity Valley, which was ranked as high as No. 8, dropped to No. 14 after losing conference games to Kilgore and Navarro.

Lon Morris currently is No. 26, Jacksonville is No. 29 and Panola is No. 30.

Cross is very concerned about his team’s preparation going into Wednesday’s game at Angelina and Saturday’s home game with Blinn College.

“The next two games will be critical,” Cross said, “We haven’t had adequate practice time after the holidays because of the severe winter weather on the east coast and in Europe, which affected the travel of most of our team back to Texas. We just had our first full practice Monday and still are missing three players due to the travel complications. After being off for so long, there is no way two days of practice will prepare us for a conference game. So, win or lose this week, we want get as much as possible out of these games.

Angelina (8-6, 0-3) is one of four Region XIV teams still looking for a conference victory. The Roadrunners lost their last two conference outings against Blinn and San Jacinto, and are coming off a 79-67 win on Monday over Richland College

Lamar State will be back in the Carl Parker Center this Saturday for a 4 p.m. conference game with Blinn College. 

[DP#1FAN]

Best of luck on 2nd half of season.