ROANE, CLEVELAND ADVANCE IN PLAY IN GAMES

Roane State and Cleveland State both advanced Friday in the playin games of the 2019 TCCAA/NJCAA Region VII Men's Tournament.  The Raiders held off a pesky Volunteer squad by a 85-83 final while the Cougars advanced with a 76-61 win over Jackson.  With the wins, the Raiders advance to play the #1 seed Senators of Walters State on Sunday while the Cougars will do battle with the #2 Seed Bucks of Motlwo State.  Both games will be on Sunday in men's quarterfinals action.

In the first game, the Raiders were able to jump out to a 42-35 lead by the end of the first twenty minutes.  Voluntter would work to get theirself back into the contest and took the lead midway through the second half.  The game would see saw back and forth in the final ten minutes.  The contest was tied at 77 with 1:34 left in the game.  James Jordan would hit back to back three pointers to give the Raiders the lead with 18 seconds left. With the score 85-82 with seven seconds left, Volunteer's Justin Goodson stepped to the free throw line to cut the lead to two.  Purposely missing the second free throw, Goodson retrieved the ball as time ran out.

James Jordan led the Raiders with 29 points while DeMierre Black also reached double figures with 21.  Austin Brooks led the team with eight rebounds and three assists.  Black led Roane with three steals.

Goodson led the Pioneers with 29 points while Tim Goodrich finished with 26 and Jaden Chumley with 11.  Chumley also led the team with seven rebounds while Goodrich had five assists and six steals.

In the second game, both teams started off sluggish as the Cougars would hold a slim 26-22 lead at the break as both teams shot 36% from the floor.  Both teams heated up in the second half as a total of 89 points were scored in the second twenty minutes.  Cleveland would score 50 of the points on 64% shooting in the second half.  The Cougars built a double digit lead in the first three minutes which they were able to maintain for the rest of the second half. 

Dalaino Walker led the Cougars with 16 points.  He was joined by Jonathan King in double figurew with 12 points as well as five assists.  Walker and King also led the team in rebound with nine and six boards.

Famous Jones led all socrers with 22 points for the GreenJays.  Christian Tyler and Brandon Odell also reached double figures with 13 and 10 points, respectively.  Odell led Jackson with nine rebounds, three steals, and two assists while Eric Boyd also had two assists and two steals in the contest.