Lions drop to 2-1 in SSC

BOCA RATON, Fla.-After pulling off an upset against Florida Southern, the Lions once

Marcus Dewberry lead all scorers with 33 points. (Saint Leo Athletics)

again confuse the Sunshine State Conference as they fail to defeat Lynn 97-91, giving the Knights their first conference win this season. First win. To Lynn. The offense for the Lions did fairly well, as sophomore transfers Caleb Stewart and Tyreece Brice went 6-for-12 and 5-for-9, respectively. Junior Marcus Dewberry carried most of the load, scoring 33 points and going 11-for-18 and making 81.8% of his free throw chances. Defensively, however, it was not a good night for Saint Leo.

Lynn (4-3, 1-3) kept in front of Saint Leo most of the night, despite occasionally blowing a few 10+ point leads. Fred Landers scored 32 points, went 10-for-19, and made 12-for-13 on free throws. Denzel Richardson also contributed significantly to the point production, adding a total of 20 on the night while going 8-for-15 on FGs. Lynn’s defense ended up with 6 blocks and 6 steals and scored 14 points off of turnovers.

The Lions (6-3, 2-2) needed to win this game in order to truly gain a leg-up within the Sunshine State Conference standings. Instead, they now are back in the middle of the pack, looking to find ways to be nationally, or even regionally, recognized by the NCAA. Even with wins over nationally-ranked Alabama-Huntsville and Florida Southern, when two current conference losses come from Eckerd and Lynn, two very beatable opponents, the NCAA will not even think twice about considering Saint Leo amongst the South regional rankings. That can change within the next few games. While first-year coach Vince Alexander has been surprising fans with the run the Lions are having, he will now have a week to fix up the blemishes and prepare his team for conference-favorite Barry (6-2, 1-1) when they make their annual trip to the Marion Bowman Activities Center.

Tipoff is Saturday, December 12th, at 4 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the Saint Leo Lions Network.