By DONN ADAMSON/Daily Journal Sports Editor

Published: Sunday, November 20, 2005
Updated: Saturday, November 19, 2005 11:52 PM CST

PARK HILLS - The Mineral Area Cardinals scored late to take the lead and then applied great defense to capture a 72-69 win over the Southeastern Iowa Black Hawks in Saturday Night's cap of the Rosener's Classic. The win kept the Cardinals undefeated at 6-0.

The Black Hawks proved to be very worthy opponents of the 19th nationally ranked Cardinals. They lost on Friday to Three Rivers in the first night of the Classic in a double-overtime struggle, but were not tired from the excursion as they took the Cardinals to the wire before MAC gained their final lead with less than a minute left to play.

The Black Hawks held a one-point lead when Darryl Butterfield hauled down an offensive rebound and fed Ralph Mata outside with the ball. Mata dribbled in and took the more sure five-footer to give MAC the lead with 57 ticks left on the clock.

The Black Hawks turned the ball over on their end of the floor, their 19th of the game, and the Cardinals called time with 37 seconds left and 28 seconds left on the shot clock.

MAC ate up the clock and with 13 seconds left Willie Hassell hit from 10 feet out to make it a three-point game, forcing the Black Hawks to think three to tie. MAC's defense triple-teamed the visitors' ace, Armando Erazo, when he got the ball, and his pass to a teammate was too late for the Black Hawks to get a shot off before the buzzer. Erazo had hit two threes already in the half.

The Cardinals had kept their turnovers to only 11 on the night against the tenacious zone of the Black Hawks. The zone kept MAC from running the ball as much as they liked, but in the second half the Cardinals found some room to score.

“We knew we could attack the back end,” said MAC coach Corey Tate in a radio interview after the game. “With them having a 6'10” player up front, we had the advantage back there.”

That was much evident when after a Cardinals time-out, a lob pass to the rim was jammed down by Tony Webb coming in from the back door. The play turned into a four-pointer as Iowa's coach was called for a three upon protesting Webb's longevity on the rim after the shot. Dontavis Jones sank the two technical shots.

The play gave MAC the biggest lead of the game by either team at 50-43, but the Black Hawks responded shortly after by scoring the next seven points and the battle was back on for the lead.

MAC trailed at the half after 20 minutes of see-saw basketball by a score of 37-36. The Black Hawks led by two in the final seconds but the basket which gave them the lead resulted in one of their rebounders grabbing the rim after the ball went through for Iowa's first technical foul. MAC made one of the free throws to close out the half's scoring.

The Cardinals countered Erazo's threes and Courtney Horton's 15 second half points with the scoring of Tony Webb and Hassell. Webb scored all of his 11 points and Hassell scored nine of his 11 in the second half to lead the team in scoring.

The Cardinals will be off until Friday when they will play Illinois Central in the first day of the Tradition Inn-Spokes Classic at Mineral Area College.

Southeastern 37-32 - 69

Mineral Area 36-36 - 72

SCORING:

Southeastern: Horton 28, Raffington 12, Erazo 10, Heyland 8, Carter 6, Taylor 4, O'Brien 1.

3-Pointers: Erazo 2.

Mineral Area: Hassell 11, Webb 11, Butterfield 10, Wilkerson 7, Mata 7, Britton 6, Henderson 6, Jones 5, Muse 4, Claitt 3, Schauf 2.

3-Pointers: Mata, Webb, Hassell, Wilkerson.