Lake Erie rallies in final minutes to topple Walsh

LEC women lose as Dawson reaches 1,000 career points

Sophomore guard Gabe Kynard, who fueled the late-game comeback with a 3-pointer and driving layup, set the stage for Morris’ big moment by initiating a drive to the rim. When a second Walsh defender went to help on the drive, Kynard whipped a pass to Morris on the wing.

“Give all the credit to Gabe. I was wide open,” Morris said, smiling.

Kynard finished with a game-high 16 points as the Storm upped its records to 14-13 overall and 9-10 in the G-MAC. They are in seventh place with one regular-season remaining, a home date against Malone on Feb. 24.

LEC is guaranteed a spot in the G-MAC tournament that begins in Findlay on March 1. It’s the first time in nine seasons at the Division II level that the Storm will play in a conference tournament. They missed out on postseason play during eight seasons in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

“We’re happy to get there. It’s a big step we needed to take,” Conley said.

Sophomore guard Erron James chipped in with 14 points for the Storm, who shot 43.6 percent from the field while limiting Walsh to 38.7 percent from the field.

The second-place Cavaliers had a four-game winning streak go by the boards. They slipped to 19-7 overall and 14-6 in the G-MAC.

Conley said valuable lessons were learned last season during the long march to a 4-23 finish in the program’s farewell to the GLIAC.

“Losing all those games was tough on the players and coaching staff,” Conley said. “It taught us how hard we have to play at all times to compete at this level.”

Women Walsh, 69, LEC 42

In an otherwise downbeat outing for the Storm, the bright spot was senior center Christine Dawson achieving a landmark.

The 6-foot-1 Mentor High School product scored 17 points and pulled down a career-high 16 rebounds. Early in the third quarter, she cashed in a layup to become the 10th player in the history of the LEC women’s program to reach the 1,000-point plateau.

With 1,007 paints, Dawson is the third former Mentor player to score at least 1,000 points at LEC. The others are current Storm teammate Kayla Gabor, the all-time leader with 1,743 points, and Stephanie Rogers, who registered 1,395 points from 2008 to 2012.

Gabor added 13 points in a loss that dropped the Storm to 12-15 overall and 8-13 in the G-MAC

Walsh upped its records to 19-8 overall and 16-5 in the G-MAC.