Raiders hold on, survive late West Plains rally

The Three Rivers men’s basketball team did everything it could to put the visiting Missouri State-West Plains Grizzlies in the rearview mirror and just enough to almost create a horror story.

Two Lamont Jackson hit two late free throws and the Raiders defense survived a Grizzlies attempt to win at the buzzer to escape with a 68-66 win after doing everything late to potentially lose the contest including missing three of four charity shots in the last 10 seconds that could have secured the win.

“I think we were doing it to ourselves basically,” Three Rivers head coach Brian Bess said. “We left a guy open in the corner in transition about three times and on offense we seemed to be in an early not realizing the time and score. We missed a ton of bunnies that could have changed the game and extended the lead.”

Three Rivers was led by Jackson (20 points, 10 rebounds, five assists) and Mo Niang and Kitenge (14 points apiece).

Three Rivers (8-10, 1-2), won its second straight game and earned its third win in four games. They head to Moberly Area College 7 p.m. Wednesday.

The first half saw the Grizzlies put up eight points in four minutes and then the Three Rivers defense went into suffocation mode as it allowed only three points in the next 11 minutes as the home team took a 19-11 lead.

The Raiders led 29-20 at the intermission thanks in part to a Niang three seconds before the buzzer.

Jackson finished with seven points, Kitenge added six points and Niang ended with five points over the first 20 minutes that was not a clinic in offensive beauty.

“We had a really good first half,” Bess said. “Defensively we were on pretty much everything they were doing and in the second half we started to lose focus and maybe because we were up and started to get comfortable.”

Lamont Jackson hit two treys and Niang added one of his own to help push the Raiders out to a 40-25 lead in the first three-plus minutes out of the locker room.

The Grizzlies then scored 11 straight points to pull within 40-36 as the offenses were clearly finding themselves after slogging through periods of play up until that point.

However, the Raiders got things straightened up with a 9-2 run and a hoop by Caleb Young pushed the Three Rivers squad to 49-38 with 11:30 left in the game.

Yet, the Grizzlies kept chipping away and wouldn’t pack it in and a 4-point play with 3:15 left pulled them to within 61-60.

Then a missed layup turned into a Grizzly made make at the tin and suddenly the Raiders trailed 62-61.

The teams exchanged scores and a defensive stop leading 65-64 after the Grizzlies had four chances to take the advantage and gave the ball back to Three Rivers with 30 seconds left.

Then the last-second drama put everyone on the edge of their seats as the Raiders held on tight.

“There were times where we were guarding well and we didn’t block out and they had three or four shots at the end,” Bess said. “It felt like they had a million chances to beat us and we were just blessed.”