JACKSON – Lightning struck twice in the Hangar Dome on Tuesday night as Doug Murry hit two vital 3-point buckets in both regulation and overtime to give the visiting Huntingdon College Hawks a 75-73 victory over Millsaps.
The two teams tied and exchanged leads 10 times, with Millsaps (1-5) building a 13-point lead with 2:37 left in the first period. The Hawks were able to come back and cut the lead to 9-points at the break, 39-30, thanks to two free throws by Jeremy Pittman.
Huntingdon (3-4) tied the game up late in the second half courtesy of an Alfonzo Frazier layup with 9:53 on the clock. Chris Sanders, was fouled later on to make the score 57-54 in favor of the Majors with eight minutes left in the period before Cameron Varnado had a layup of his own with seven minutes to make the score 59-56. A good 3-pointer by Reggie Sprouse of the Hawks made it 59-59 with just over six minutes left.
The two teams exchanged buckets, until senior Chad Songy stole the ball from Pittman and took it the length of the floor where he eventually found Russell Booth for a rim-shaking dunk to give the Majors a 68-65 lead with 15 seconds left.
Unfortunately for the home squad, Murry went coast-to-coast on the ensuing Hawks possession and banked in a 3-pointer with 8 seconds left to make the score 68-68 and send the two teams into overtime.
Millsaps had a brief lead in the overtime period, thanks to Chris Ingle who scored a bucket off an assist from Songy, before Huntingdon went back ahead by two at 72-70. Booth's three pointer with 31 seconds put the Majors back up by one, 73-72, until Murry struck again with just over 3 seconds left to give the Hawks the 75-73 victory.
Three Majors were in double figures on the night, led by Blake Martinez who had 22 points and seven boards on 6-of-12 shooting. Booth ended the night with a career-high 18 points, six rebounds and one blocked shot, while Sanders recorded a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Songy scored just five points on 1-of-6 shooting, but tied a career-high with 10 assists to go along with four steals.
Millsaps will continue a 4-game homestand, opening up conference play on Saturday with a 1 p.m. tipoff against Hendrix College. The game will be live video webcast and can be seen on www.atwsportscast.com.
