Southeast Arkansas College has started its first season of men’s basketball at 4-0, and there’s plenty of room for improvement in Coach Chad Kline’s eyes.
“I’m not amazed with it; I wish we had played better in a few of the games, but we’re getting better day by day,” Kline said after the Sharks defeated the LeMoyne-Owen College junior varsity 96-68 Thursday night at H.O. Clemmons Arena. “That’s all we preach about. Sometimes we have a bad day, and we just try to get better every day. The results will take care of themselves in February and in March.”
The biggest test of the year, Kline proclaimed, will be at 1 p.m. Monday. That’s when SEARK hosts Coahoma Community College, an NJCAA Division I team from the Mississippi Delta. The game was moved up 6 hours to avoid a conflict with the UAPB women’s game against Texas A&M-Texarkana.
On Thursday SEARK clung to 43-38 halftime lead, and that was after Israel Malone threw down a one-handed jam to beat the buzzer. Getting defensive stops in the final 20 minutes allowed the Sharks to pull away from the Magicians.
“I didn’t think our defense was worth a darn in the first half,” Kline said. “We started getting in the gaps better. We started limiting them to one shot (each possession). We rebounded the ball well. We’re scoring at a high clip, but our defense – if we can hold teams in the 60s, we’ll win every game.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Torrey Caswell scored 22 points to lead SEARK, which has scored 90 or more points in three of its victories. Jalen Brown had 21 points and Derek Magwood scored 15 in the win.
“We’re getting used to each other,” said Malone, who had 8 points. “A lot of chemistry. People know where everybody’s at on the court. We know where everybody is on defense. So, everything’s starting to fill out how we want it.”
Kylan Haywood scored 15 points, Amari Chatman 14 and Martico Washington 11 for LeMoyne-Owen, an NCAA Division II private university in Memphis.
Women: SEARK 67, LeMoyne-Owen JV 47
Also at Clemmons Arena, the SEARK women’s team picked up the offense each quarter going from 10 points in the first quarter all the way to 23 in the final 10 minutes to beat the junior varsity Magicians.
SEARK and LeMoyne-Owen were tied at 23-all at halftime after the Sharks held a 10-6 first-quarter lead. Serenity Barnes sank 2 of the Sharks’ 5 3-point buckets in the third period, as they outscored the Magicians 21-9.
Thirteen SEARK players scored, led by Patience Johnson with 11 points. Amethyst Price dropped 7 points in the win.
Carla Jean and Janara Williams led the Magicians with 9 points each.
The Shark women will return to action Nov. 22 at the Arkansas/Texas Challenge Classic at UA-Cossatot’s gym in Lockesburg. SEARK will play Dallas College Mountain View at 1 p.m. that day.