MONROE, La. – The Appalachian State men's basketball team used a late push to notch a 79-73 victory at Louisiana Monroe on Saturday afternoon.
Trailing 71-66, the Mountaineers (8-9, 3-1 SBC) scored nine consecutive points, capped off by a step back three-pointer from sophomore
O'Showen Williams (Macon, Ga./Stratford Academy) to open a 75-71 lead with 1:26 to play.
The Warhawks (7-8, 1-3 SBC) would get a basket from Michael Ertel on their next possession.
From there, freshman
Justin Forrest (Decatur, Ga./Greenforest McCalep Christian Academy) drove the lane and drew a blocking foul, scoring on the play. He missed the ensuing free throw, but the Black and Gold still held a 77-73 lead with 25 seconds remaining.
App State would get a defensive stop and Williams was fouled. He stepped to the charity stripe and knocked down both free throws to put the game away.
Junior
Ronshad Shabazz (Raleigh, N.C./Huntington Prep) paced App State with a game-high 22 points on 8-of-13 (61.5 percent) shooting and a 4-of-6 (66.7 percent) mark on three-pointers. He also dished out a season-high tying six assists. Shabazz has now scored 20 or more points in 10 games this season.
Forrest chipped in with 14 points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Off the bench, Williams had 12 points on 4-of-6 (66.7 percent) shooting and six rebounds, which was just one shy of his career-high. Senior
Craig Hinton (Winston-Salem, N.C./East Forsyth) added a season-high tying 11 points off the bench on a season-high tying 4-of-5 (80.0 percent) shooting and a 3-of-4 (75.0 percent) clip from deep.
The Warhawks used a 6-0 spurt midway through the first half to build a 21-13 lead.
The Apps countered with a 13-4 run to take their first lead of the game at 26-25 with 5:01 left in the first half.
A late push by UL Monroe allowed them to take a 37-34 lead into the intermission.
App State finished 29-of-55 (52.7 percent) from the field and went 13-of-24 (54.2 percent) from deep. UL Monroe went 29-of-62 (46.8 percent) in shooting and knocked down 10-of-24 (41.7 percent) trifectas.
Appalachian forced the Warhawks into 10 turnovers and scored 15 points off of those miscues.
Jordon Harris paced the Warhawks with 17 points and Ertel finished with 15. Travis Munnings chipped in with 13 points and Marvin Pierre-Jean tallied 11 points off the bench.
The Mountaineers will now return to Boone and play two games inside the Holmes Center. The Black and Gold host Georgia State on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and will take on Georgia Southern on January 13 at 3:30 p.m. Tickets are still available for all remaining Appalachian State men's basketball home games. Appalachian State basketball single game tickets can be purchased online by clicking
here, by phone at
(828) 262-2079 or in person at the Appalachian State athletics ticket office, located at the Holmes Center (Monday - Friday; 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.).
