Skyhawks Fall In Heartbreaking Fashion At Longwood – UTM Athletics

FARMVILLE, Va. – The University of Tennessee at Martin men’s basketball team led for over 38 minutes of today’s contest but Longwood took its first lead with three seconds remaining to hand the Skyhawks a tough 64-62 setback.
           
UT Martin led by 12 points with 6:30 left to play and held a 62-57 advantage with 1:01 remaining but the Lancers went on a furious rally, scoring the final seven points of the contest.
           
Josué Grullon continued his phenomenal start to the season for the Skyhawks (2-2), scoring 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting – including a 6-of-10 effort from three-point range. He also added three steals in 26 minutes off the bench.
           
Lamine Niang hauled in 10 rebounds in 24 minutes in his first start of the season while Vladimer Salaridze just missed a double-double with nine points and eight rebounds in 22 minutes. Carlos Cortijo handed out a game-high four assists in 25 minutes off the bench for UT Martin, who made 10 three-pointers and shot 82.4 percent (14-for-17) from the free throw line.
           
Longwood (4-0) was held to 25.9 percent shooting from three-point range, connecting on just seven of its 27 tries from long distance. KJ McClurg scored a game-high 25 points for the Lancers, who have made two of the last three NCAA Tournaments out of the Big South Conference.
           
Back-to-back treys from AJ Hopkins and Grullon broke a 7-7 tie and gave the Skyhawks a 13-7 advantage with 12:41 to go before the halftime break. Salaridze and Grullon sank triples as to bookend an 8-0 run that gave UT Martin its first double-digit lead of the day (21-9) at the 10:53 mark of the first half.
           
A Stefano Faloppa layup helped the Skyhawks take their biggest lead of the day (31-18) at the 2:30 mark before UT Martin settled for a 33-24 halftime advantage. Grullon’s 11 points topped all scorers as the Skyhawk defense held Longwood to 1-of-10 shooting from beyond the three-point arc with nine turnovers.
           
The Lancers scored 13 out of the first 14 points of the second half and soon pulled within two points at 39-37. UT Martin responded with eight unanswered points, starting and ending with Grullon trifectas to nudge the Skyhawk lead back out to double figures (47-37) with 14:10 to go.
           
Longwood once again whittled its deficit down to two points but UT Martin had another strong response – accounting for a 10-0 run that featured five points from Matija Žužić. Three free throws from Afan Trnka resulted in a 57-45 Skyhawk lead with 6:30 left in the contest.
           
Grullon sank two free throws to make the score 62-57 with 61 ticks remaining. After two Lancer free throws and a three-pointer evened the game at 62-all, Longwood made two free throws with three seconds left to take its first lead of the afternoon. Grullon got a look at a potential game-winning 30-foot heave at the buzzer but the desperation attempt rimmed out as time expired.
           

UT Martin heads to the Lone Star State for the two-game Island U Invitational on Nov. 21-22. The Skyhawks will take on tournament host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Thursday (7 p.m.) before squaring off against Le Moyne on Friday (5 p.m.).