UTEP men’s basketball ‘defeathered’ McMurry Warhawks in a home game Monday night at the Don Haskins Stadium.
UTEP is undefeated against the Warhawks having won its previous six matchups since the 1971-72 season of Miners Basketball.
Right off the bat, the Warhawks were off to the races, with guard CJ LeBlanc scoring a three pointer at the 18:57 mark. With17:56 minutes left, Warhawks guard Matt Pena nailed a three pointer UTEP soon retaliated with layups from forwards Otis Fraizer III and David Terrell Jr. With 16:30 minutes left guard Corey Camper Jr made a dunk along with a three pointer from forward Elijah Jones.
Following a jumper from forward Calvin Solomon, the Warhawks took a reign of three points in the row from the team with a total score of 9-11 with 15:50 minutes left the first half. Senior guard Tae Hardy made a three pointer and Frazier nailed a dunk at 15:29 minutes and Jones made a jumper quickly at 14:39. At this point, the Miners took a fast lead with a score of 18-9; not letting up for the rest of the half.
Soon Warhawks’ LeBlanc made a three pointer at 13:49, with Warhawks forward/center Elias Garcia scoring not long after. With less than ten minutes left, the Miners scored four times consecutively with a notable three-pointer from forward Jon Don Anjos and a quick jumper from Camper Jr. By the halfway mark of the first half, there were several highlight worthy plays from the Miners.
Warhawks Guard Coco Rose made a layup, but the Miners almost doubled the lead with a total score of 45-26. With three minutes left in the half, Solomon and Hamilton sunk key three pointers. With only moments left in the first half, both teams started scoring back and forth in quick succession. However, the Miners pulled through with a leading score of 59-43.
At the start of the second half, the Warhawks came out clawing with LeBlanc at 19:14 by making a jumper. But in quick succession Jones made an impressive three pointer and a dunk with 18:32 minutes left.
After a score from Warhawks’ Garcia, the Miners had a consecutive point streak with Solomon and Frazier making layups and a dunk from Guard Zid Powell at the 16:59 minute mark.
After a vicious back and forth from both teams, each minute going down faster and faster, the Miners struck gold at the 12:58 minute mark. The Miners went on another consecutive point streak, upping the total from 77-54 to 88-74. This came from efforts by Solomon, Hardy, Powell and with a layup from Hardy to cap the score to 88 for the Miners.
Halfway through the second half, another scoring battle back and forth occurred with Warhawks LeBlac gaining speed on the scoreboard for McMurry with a total score of 109-69 by minute 4:00.
Although there were many additional efforts from the Warhawks with each minute fading, there was no match to the dominate performance from the Miners. By the end of the second half, the Miners defeathered the Warhawks with a score of 120-71.
The Miners led the percentages in dunks, layups and two-pointers. The Miners had more highlights with this electric start of the season for UTEP men’s basketball. Jones managed to score a team high with 19 points. Powell had six rebounds and Hardy had nine assists. The Miners totaled 72 bench points over McMurry who only totaled 15. The Miners also had a 66 field goal percentage with only a 32 percentage from McMurry. The Miners had 15 steals, 29 assists and a heavy 70 points in the paint with McMurry only totaling 18 points in the same metric.
H. Catching Marginot is a staff reporter and may be reached at [email protected]
