Lyon College's John Paul Morgan scored 24 points and hauled in 10 rebounds to lead the Scots in a 74-71 home loss to Texas A&M Texarkana Eagles on Saturday night at Becknell Gymnasium.
Morgan was 8-14 on field goals, had one three-pointer and made 7-of-8 free throws. Grant Patterson added 17 points and was 8-of-9 from the free throw line, Ben Keton had 13 points and Gavin Brunson came in off the Scots bench to contribute nine points, including a three-pointer late in the second half.
Keton gave the Scots the early lead on a jumper in the lane among three defenders in the first half. Patterson came back to hit a 3-pointer after a TAMUT basket for a 5-2 lead. Trenton Bell, who finished with six points for Lyon, made a three-pointer, but the Eagles fought back to take a 10-8 until Patterson made another 3-pointer for the Scots.
Texarkana went up 15-11, but Jonathan Iliya hit a basket inside for Lyon. Morgan added four straight free throws to keep the Scots within two points, 19-17. Two baskets from Brunson tied the game at 21-21. Morgan scored inside again, but Texarkana reeled off eight consecutive points to take a 29-23 lead. Morgan made two free throws, Keton hit a 3-pointer and Patterson made a free throw with 3:13 to go in the first half to tie the game at 29-29.
TAMUT moved out to a 35-29 lead before Morgan scored three straight times on Scots possessions to cut the Texarkana lead to 41-35 at intermission.
The Scots trailed by as much as 17-points in the first five minutes of the second half, 53-36. Morgan hit a free throw, Keton drove the lane for a basket and Patterson kicked the ball out to Bell for a 3-pointer to close the gap to 55-42. Morgan made a jumper and then hit a 3-pointer and Keton added a 3-pointer to make it a 57-50 TAMUT lead with 11:03 to go.
Two free throws from Patterson and a layup from Brunson was followed by a Brunson 3-pointer that was contested from the deep left corner to 63-57. The Scots got a jumper from Keton and a 3-pointer from Patterson to get within four points and Patterson put in two free throws with to get Lyon within two points, 71-69 with 1:32 to play. TAMUT made the front end of a one-and-one and Kobe Powell grabbed the offensive rebound. Powell converted a layup with 10 seconds left to seal the game for the Eagles.
Texas A&M Texarkana was led by Powell and Connor Ouellette with 17 points each. The Eagles shot 48 percent from the field and hit 7-of-18 3-pointers. Lyon had a 46 percent field goal shooting mark to go with 9-of-21 3-pointers. Lyon was outrebounded 36-27, with 13 of the TAMUT boards coming off the offensive end.
The Scots (4-8) will be in action on Monday at Crowley's Ridge College with the tip-off at 6 p.m. and they will play an exhibition game at Arkansas State University against the Red Wolves on Tuesday at 4 p.m. before taking off for Christmas.