BATON ROUGE, LA. -- Southern (4-7, 4-3 SWAC) comeback falls short as they were defeated 72-69 by Grambling State (8-8, 6-3 SWAC) Saturday night at the F.G. Clark Activity Center.
Junior Samkelo Cele led Southern with a career/season-high 27 points on 10-of-17 (58.8%) from the field, 4-of-6 (66.7%) on 3-pointers. Senior Ahsante Shivers added 12 points and eight rebounds. Graduate transferHarrison Henderson led the Jaguars with nine rebounds and finished with nine points.
GSU opened the game with a three point basket then continued on a 16-0 run, to take a 19-0 lead with 14:23 in the first half. SU got on the board with Cele fast break layup, trailing 19-2. SU started getting into a rhythm and the Jaguars were able to put together a 20-12 run to cut into the Tigers lead 31-22 with Rollins jumper at the 8:13 mark. After trading baskets back and forth SU headed into halftime trailing 40-33.
“Its just surprising that we came out so flat at the start, and it made it hard for us,” Southern head coach Sean Woods said. “We got it close, but we couldn’t get over the hump. Every time we got close we’d turn the ball over and hurt ourselves.”
The start of the second half Harrison made a free throw followed by Williams layup cutting the deficit 40-36. Both teams would go on runs trading baskets over the next six minutes. With 9:24 on the clock, Cele stole the ball from the GSU player and was fouled making an acrobat breakaway dunk. Cutting the GSU lead to one point, 55-54.
With 1:11 remaining, SU trailed 71-62. Jayden Saddler jumper in the paint closed the lead 71-64 and an SU took a timeout. The Jaguars were able to steal the ball and Cele made three pointer with :40 left closed the lead to four, 71-67. On the next possession Brooks was able to steal the ball but Shivers 3-point attempt was off the mark and the Tigers rebounded the ball, ending SU comeback chances.
