Box Score
ABILENE, Texas – With three games to spare McMurry University has moved into a tie for first place in the American Southwest Conference West Division with a 100-91 win over Concordia-Texas Thursday night at Kimbrell Arena. The victory sets up Saturday's game with Mary Hardin-Baylor to decide who will have the edge for the title as UMHB and McMurry each have a 13-5 record in league play thru Thursday.
Derick Sumpter scored a career-high 29 points, the most by any McMurry individual this season to help the team move to 15-7 overall. Sumpter hit 9 of 16 shots and was 10 of 13 from the free-throw line while
Teddy Chambers posted a double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds.
Jaden Isler scored 14 points and
Steven Jones added 11 in McMurry's 58 percent shooting effort.
CTX trailed by 12 points at half, but continued to crawl back in the contest cutting the lead to two points on two different occasions. Taylor Jacobs' 3-pointer with 12:30 left made the score 67-65 in favor of McMurry. The home team countered to build the lead back to nine points on a Sumpter jumper with 8:47 to make the score 74-65.
However, the Tornados would not lay down and Dariu Anderson's layup with 6:23 remaining capped an 11-2 run to make the score 76-74. McMurry then answered with eight-straight points to build thte lead back to 10. From there, CTX was never closer than six points of the lead.
McMurry closed the first half on an 18-7 run after Concordia-Texas had cut McMurry's lead to three points at 30-27. McMurry shot an outstanding 67 percent from the floor in the first half on 18 of 27 shooting and hit 4 of its 8 3-pointers. In addition, McMurry's defense held the Tornados to a 33 percent effort in the first half.
The Tornados shot 51 percent in the second half to try and mount a comeback and even outscored McMurry 55-52 in the second period. However, the first-half deficit was too much to overcome.
In the losing effort, five players scored in double figures for the Tornados with Anderson and Josh Johnson scoring 17 points apiece.
McMurry and Mary Hardin-Baylor tip at 3 p.m. Saturday at Kimbrell Arena in Abilene.
