Cowboys come up short at UC Colorado Springs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. --- The New Mexico Highlands men's basketball team was tied with UC Colorado Springs at 64-64 with less than 10 minutes left in the contest, but a quick 7-0 run by the Mountain Lions helped UCCS pull away and the Cowboys never got closer than five points the rest of the contest during a 94-83 loss on the road.
 
After each team traded 3-pointers to give UCCS (16-9 overall, 13-6 RMAC) a 64-62 lead over NMHU (16-9, 11-8), Gerad Davis took the ball strong to the basket and scored to make it 64-64 with 10:28 remaining in the contest.
 
But an Ian McDonald 3-pointer on the Mountain Lions' next possession started a 7-0 run for UCCS capped by a McDonald layup to make it 71-64 with 8:17 remaining. The Cowboys eventually fell behind by as much as 15 (86-71 with 3:09 remaining) before making one last push.
 
Down 11 with less than two minutes to go, NMHU's Raquan Mitchell drained a 3-pointer before Desmond Carpenter got a steal and a layup with 1:22 remaining to make it 87-81. Down 89-83 with 1:01 left, the Cowboys picked up a team technical foul and had to commit a foul and the Mountain Lions drained all four free throws to make it a 10-point lead again and held on for the 11-point win.
 
Free throws turned out to be the difference as UCCS hit 29 of 37 attempts from the charity stripe while the Cowboys went 13 for 15. UCCS also shot 62.2 percent from the field – including 9-for-20 from 3-point range – compared to NMHU shooting 46.2 percent and going 10-for-26 from beyond the arc.
 
Mitchell led the Cowboys with 33 points, going 6-for-10 from 3-point range, while adding eight rebounds. Davis finished with 23 points in just 20 minutes of play due to foul trouble (eventually fouling out with four minutes left to play). No other Cowboy reached double figures.
 
The loss puts NMHU in seventh place in the RMAC at 11-8 – one game up on Adams State (which NMHU owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Grizzlies) for the eighth and final spot into the RMAC Tournament with Chadron State a game back of Adams State with three games to go. NMHU is a game back of Colorado Mesa for the No. 6 spot while the Cowboys are two games back of a three-way tie for third place with the top four teams in the standings getting to host in the first round of the RMAC Tournament.
 
NMHU returns to Las Vegas as they play their final two regular-season home games against MSU Denver 7 p.m. Friday and Chadron State 7 p.m. Saturday (Senior Night) at Wilson Complex.