Fulton, Miss. – Ben Seely has patiently waited for his name to be called where he could contribute to the Northeast Mississippi Community College men's basketball team during his freshman season.
Seely's positive composure paid off on Thursday night when he compiled five points, a team-high six rebounds and a block in the Tigers' 83-61 loss to Itawamba Community College at the Davis Event Center.
The 6-9, 250-pound Hamilton native played in a career-best 11 minutes after starting center Al Azulphar picked up his fourth foul just over 40 seconds after the intermission concluded.
"I just want to do as much as I can off the bench to help my team," said Seely. "Whenever coach (Cord Wright) needs me, I'm happy with it."
Seely started a quick 7-0 Northeast run in the second half. A nice jumper off a Cannon Edwards assist was followed by two Dimario Jackson free throws and a Reggie Patterson trey.
Another Seely field goal cut the Tigers' deficit to 70-52 with 4:33 to play, but Northeast (4-14, 1-6) could not come any closer to the current first-place team in the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges (MACJC) North Division.
"We allowed them to set the precedence early and they kind of continued all the way through," said Wright, Northeast's first-year headman. "Obviously nobody wants to lose, but it was a tough road game and we have to bounce back."
The two rivals stayed within one possession of each other for the initial ten minutes of the contest. An Edwards three-pointer put the Tigers down just 19-16 at the 11:25 mark.
Itawamba (12-6, 7-0) began to pull away late in the opening half. A spurt of seven straight points, five of them from Tory Rice, gave the Indians their first double-digit advantage at 39-27.
Jackson drained two technical foul free shots to make the score 41-30 in favor of Itawamba at halftime, but the Indians picked up where they left off after the break.
A 13-0 run that included three straight makes by Austin Timms upped Itawamba's lead to 62-34 before a Seely free throw stopped the damage.
Jackson headed Northeast's offensive effort with 13 points and four assists. Edwards and Patterson added 11 points apiece for the Tigers, who shot 41.9 percent from the floor.
The Northeast bench, led by Jackson and Edwards, outscored its opponent's reserves by a 31-22 margin.
Rice topped the Indians with 19 points while Timms scored 13. Itawamba stayed true to form on its league-lead in free throw shooting and knocked down 22 of 25 attempts.
(W) Itawamba 89, Northeast 49
Antionette Riddle is enjoying a slight switch-up of sorts for the Lady Tigers. The Tupelo High School product, whose true position is at guard, is seeing some time as a post player and benefiting from it.
The sophomore recorded her thirteenth straight game in double figures with 18 points. She also added 10 rebounds for the second double-double of her career.
"It's actually a little fun to get to battle under the rim and get some high-percentage shots," said Riddle. "I think right now I'm getting into it and it's going really well."
Riddle scored 14 of Northeast's initial 22 points in the matchup to keep her squad within one basket of the Itawamba lead with 8:00 remaining in the opening half.
From that point, though, the Lady Indians (10-8, 6-1) tallied 14 straight points over a period of 6 minutes, 45 seconds. Jeronia Allen had three buckets in that stretch to help Itawamba take a 45-26 advantage into the locker room.
"We started getting in some foul trouble, I took some people out and we went on a downhill slide at that point and to be honest we never recovered," said Lady Tiger head coach Brian Alexander. "We dug ourselves a hole and Itawamba took advantage of it."
The Lady Indians kept their hot touch in the second and had separate runs of eight and nine points in a row to put the contest out of reach for Northeast (6-12, 1-6).
Both teams struggled from behind the arc. The Lady Tigers and Itawamba were a combined 1 of 29 from three-point range with Lexy Lindsey hitting the only trey of the evening.
Allen was the lone Lady Indian to reach double digits and totaled a double-double with 18 points and 10 boards.
Aushiana Ivy notched eight points and seven rebounds in another solid performance for the Tupelo product.
Northeast returns to the court on Monday, February 3 to open the final month of the 2013-14 regular season by hosting Northwest Mississippi Community College. Women's start time for the two archrivals is set for 5:30 p.m. with the men immediately following at Bonner Arnold Coliseum.