On Monday, the Tacoma Community College Titans proved they were still basketball kings of the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges West Division with an upset of No. 1 Clark College.
On Saturday, they were survivors – and barely.
Emotionally flat, and often times just flat-out careless, the No. 5 Titans were in a scrap all the way to the end before pulling out a 73-65 victory over Centralia College.
The Blazers (5-18 overall, 3-9 NWAACC West), who are in next-to-last place in the division, played spirited, beat up Tacoma (18-4, 10-10) inside with post players Mozeek and Wellington Waggener and had a chance to win.
Down 14 points with 91/2 minutes to go, Centralia battled back to make it a one-possession game when Van Lockett buried a rainbow 6-footer along the baseline to cut it to 67-65 with 1:20 to go.
The Titans called timeout to draw up something for Nate Walker. And Demetrius Smith executed it ideally when his lob pass inside found the 6-foot-6 sophomore, who then converted on a nifty spin move for a basket – and a 69-65 TCC lead with 1:01 remaining.
“I came in kind of cold … sitting on the bench the final 10 minutes of the (first) half,” Walker said. “I just tried to stay in it and battle because I knew my team needed it. I don’t feel like we had it in this game. We kind of pushed through.”
The Blazers turned the ball over on their end, and missed three consecutive 3-pointers to end the game.
Mark McLaughlin led the Titans with 27 points on 10-for-18 shooting. Walker and Smith chipped in with 15 points each. The Waggener siblings combined for 29 points and 21 rebounds – 10 coming on the offensive end.
“I have tried to tell them, we’ve got a big target on our chest, and we can’t take nights off,” TCC coach Carl Howell said. “We took a good portion of tonight off.”
At Lewis & Clark 63, Pacific Lutheran 53: A fourth consecutive road defeat has the Lutes (10-13, 7-7 Northwest Conference) on the brink of being eliminated from conference playoff contention.
The only reason PLU has a faint hope is that George Fox (11-12, 8-6) dropped a 77-75 decision at Willamette on Saturday night.
The Bruins’ loss also clinched an NWC postseason spot for Puget Sound for the first time since 2009.
The only way the Lutes can earn the final berth is if they sweep next weekend at home against Pacific and George Fox, the Bruins lose at home to Linfield on Friday night before traveling to Parkland and Lewis & Clark drops one of its final two games.
George Fox and Lewis & Clark have the tiebreaker edge over the Lutes based on their earlier win over Whitman, which swept PLU.
Marcus Wells’ 3-pointer broke a tie at 32 with 13:25 remaining and gave the Pioneers (12-11, 7-7) the lead for good. James Conti led the Lutes with 14 points.
WOMEN
At Lewis & Clark 76, PLU 65: Samantha Potter had 15 points and 14 rebounds – her 12th double-double of the season – but the Lutes fell to the No. 9 Pioneers (21-2, 12-2) in Portland.
PLU (7-16, 4-10) led 14-10 seven minutes into the game before Lewis & Clark scored 14 consecutive points.
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