The Snow College basketball team picked up three wins in three days on their longest road trip of the season.
The Badgers won games in Las Vegas and San Bernadino, California en route to clinching the No. 2 seed for the upcoming Region XVIII tournament in Salt Lake City.
Snow College topped Southern Nevada 88-82. The Badgers then defeated Community Christian College twice 98-76 and 99-84.
“This was a tough road trip,” said Snow College coach Rob Nielson. “We knew it would be, but I think it also helps prepare us for the tournament next week.”
With the three wins, the Badgers will be the No. 2 seed behind Salt Lake Community College, and it also means Snow College will face Community Christian College a third time in less than a week.
“We learned a lot about this team with these two games,” Nielson said. “We can now take a look at some film and have some time to prepare a little better for our game on Thursday. They are a good team that can shoot and take it to the basket. We’ll be able to plan and prepare better for our next meeting.”
Thursday the Badgers were led by Wyatt Lowell who had 27 points; Drake Allen added 23; Clayton Southwick had a double-double with 14 points and 15 rebounds; Hagen Wright had 12 points and Chase Potter 10 as the starters played a lot of minutes in the win.
“We relied heavily on the starters tonight, and we expended a lot of energy trying to come from behind,” Nielson said. “Mason Chase gave us some really good minutes even though he didn’t score much. He did a lot of other things on the floor that we needed to get the win.”
The Badgers fell behind by as many as 26 points in the first half, but were able to cut the deficit to 10 at the half and then took the lead within the first four minutes of the second half.
After traveling another four hours and a short night of sleep, Snow College took on Community Christian College in a battle that saw Allen come up one assist short of a triple-double. Allen finished with 15 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. Derek Marlowe came off the bench to spark the Badgers, hitting four out of five 3-pointers enroute to a 22-point night.
“You could tell a lot of our starters were tired from the effort the night before,” Nielson said. “We needed a spark from our bench, and Derek really provided that for us with his shooting and also his defense. He just had the energy we needed off the bench.”
Wright had 12 points, Ben Tew came off the bench to score 11. Lowell also had 11 and Southwick added 10 points.
Snow College capped the road trip with a 99-84 win over the Saints of Community Christian College.
The Badgers were again led by Allen with 23 points, Wright had 17, Lowell 16, Southwick scored 10 in the second half to finish with 12 for the game. Mason Chase came off the bench to score 11.
“I felt like this game might be tough,” Nielson said. “We gave them some confidence with our play on Friday, and I thought we might be a little flat on our third game in as many days. We needed good play from the bench again.”
Tew and Hayden Franson came off the bench and played a lot of minutes, scoring five points each in the first half. The Saints made a run on the Badgers and got to within four points before a time out and regrouping by Snow College to rally and extend the lead back to double digits.
“We have some work to do to prepare for our next game,” Nielson said. “If we want to advance in the tournament, we will need to play much better defense against this team.”
The Badgers will face the Saints in the first round of the Region XVIII Tournament on Thursday at 2 p.m. at Salt Lake Community College. The game can be heard on KMTI-AM 650.
