Lumberjacks create log jam in standings

Defense stifles scoring leaders for the Bearkats

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Battle of the Piney Woods football game was not played in the fall of 2020. Sunday afternoon’s basketball game between Sam Houston State and Stephen F. Austin seemed to fill that void somewhat.

A crowd of around 2,000 was in attendance at Johnson Coliseum in Nacogdoches in a game nationally televised on ESPNU. SFA’s band was in attendance, and the school’s cheerleaders were on the concourse yelling for the home team in a matchup of two of the Southland Conference’s top teams.

“It really felt like a college basketball game again,” SFA coach Kyle Keller said. “You actually heard some crowd noise, making it fun. There was a little bit of a juice in the building for the first time all year. So it was fun for the kids to play in.”

It was the Lumberjacks doing the celebrating following a 78-68 victory that created a bottleneck atop the league standings.

The Jacks clamped down defensively on Sam Houston’s two leading scorers, and on the other end, SFA received offensive production from senior guards David Kachelries and Roti Ware to snap the Bearkats’ 10-game winning streak.

Kachelries scored a career-high 22 points, and Ware, who carried a heavy load on offense and defense, added 19 as the Lumberjacks handed the Bearkats their first conference loss in eight games. Sam Houston joins SFA, Nicholls State and Abilene Christian with only one loss in league play.

“We didn’t play our best game,” Sam Houston coach Jason Hooten said. “I’m disappointed.”

SFA (10-3, 6-1) was out in front for 34 minutes and led by as many as 11 points in the first half before going to the break with a 3936 advantage.

Sam Houston (13-6, 7-1) never gave up and stayed within striking distance. The Bearkats’ last lead of the first half was 7-6. Their last lead of the game was 41-39 in the opening minute of the second half on a 3-pointer from Zach Nutall.

Nutall, the Southland’s leading scorer at nearly 20 points per game, didn’t score until nearly 13 minutes into the contest. He finished with 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting. Sam Houston’s second-leading scorer on the season, Demarkus Lampley, was held to 10 points. Lampley took only six shots from the field, making two.

“They did a tremendous job of taking those two guys out of the game,” Hooten said. “It was hard for them to get baskets. We’ve got to do a better job of getting them cleaner looks against real good defenses like that.”

SFA tried to trap every ball screen and was successful at it. Defending either Lampley or Nutall most of the game was Ware, who hit eight of 14 shots and added five rebounds, two steals and two blocks.

Freshman guard Bryce Monroe picked up the scoring slack for the Bearkats with 16 points, going 6of-16 from the field.

While SFA was limiting the productivity of Nutall and Lampley, Sam Houston did the same against two of SFA’s top scorers, Cameron Johnson and Gavin Kensmil, who scored nine points each, attempting only seven shots apiece.

“It came down to complementary players,” Keller said. “I thought our complementary players played well for us, and that was the difference.”

SFA improved to 9-0 at Johnson Coliseum and avoided dropping consecutive conference games for the first time since 2018-19. Last Wednesday’s loss to Abilene Christian snapped a 20-game Southland Conference winning streak for the Lumberjacks.

SFA came into Sunday’s game second nationally in field-goal shooting percentage (53.7) behind topranked Gonzaga. On Sunday, the Jacks made 44.3 percent (27 of 61). SFA outrebounded Sam Houston 40-29.