Harper picks up postseason win
On Monday afternoon, the Harper College men’s basketball team brought its defense.
Behind an effort that forced 28 turnovers, the No. 2-seeded Hawks hustled past No. 7 seed Lorain County (Ohio) 80-70 in the preliminary round of the NJCAA Region IV, Division III tournament at Rock Valley College.
Harper (23-8) earned its first postseason triumph since 2006 and advanced to Wednesday night’s 7:30 p.m. semifinal round against the winner of the Monday evening preliminary round game between No. 3 Madison and No. 6 seed Rock Valley.
The Hawks’ first big surge came when they trailed 18-15 with 11:57 left in the first half. A 19-4 run keyed by 6 points each from Brian Battaglia (Elk Grove) and Wes Wilcox (Lake Park) put Harper in front 34-22 at the 3:20 mark and 42-32 at the half.
Ricky Melendez hit a 3 to keep Lorain (12-13) down by 12 (55-43) with 13:22 to play before the Harper defense sparked a 12-0 run that made it 67-43 with 9:54 left. Freshman guard Keven Zelaya (Elk Grove) led the run with 5 of his 6 points.
The Commodores rallied to close the gap to 8 (78-70) on a putback by Melendez (15 points) with 21 seconds left which closed out a 27-11 binge that covered more nine minutes before a pair of free throws by Wilcox (22 points) closed out the scoring.
Shonnon Barfield added 16 points, Garret Gatz (Conant) had 14 and Battaglia finished with 10. Lorain was led by Joel Jackson with 22 points, and Andrew Davis had 10.