Men still on the ball

The Jaguars are still number one as they traveled to take on defending champions Alabama A&M and came away with an 84-80 victory at Elmore Gym Saturday.
Southern led 33-19 in the first half before settling for a 10-point halftime lead, 36-26.
“We’ve been a team that has played well in the first half all year,” Head Coach Rob Spivery said. “We’ve built up a 10-15 point lead and then we have to hold off the opposing team. That’s been the script all year and we followed it again tonight.”
However, A&M (8-12, 6-7) used an 18-8 run to tie the game at 57. A&M refused to give up as they had an 11-4 run with seven points, including a pair of free throws with 16 seconds left that pulled them within 81-80, but couldn’t get any closer.
“We expected them to come back,” said junior guard Deforrest Riley-Smith. “It seemed for about five minutes they didn’t miss, but we withstood that hard punch and was able to get out of here with a win.”
Riley-Smith paced five Southern players in double figures with 17 points. Senior Chris Alexander had 14 points, senior center Jerrid Campbell and senior forward Peter Cipriano had 12 each and freshmen guard Steffon Wiley added 10. Campbell also grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds.
Southern (13-11, 11-2) now only has four SWAC games left.”We’ve got two road games left and if we can win one of those two, I like our chances,” Spivery said.