CHARLOTTE, NC – The 2009-2010 season for the Livingstone men’s basketball team came to an end Thursday as the Blue Bears fell to the St. Augustine’s Falcons 54-31 in the Quarterfinals of the CIAA Tournament.
The Blue Bears finished the season with a 12-16 record while St. Augustine’s improved to 24-4. The Falcons advanced to play Chowan University Friday in the semifinals.
The game plan for the Blue Bears was to keep St. Augustine’s in the 60-point range. The team did just that, unfortunately they were not able to capitalize offensively on their solid defense.
Livingstone struggled shooting the ball in the second half, hitting only two field goals on 23 attempts. The Blue Bears missed all eight of their free-throw attempts and converted only eight of their 22 free-throw attempts.
The Blue Bears jumped out to an early 7-1 lead, forcing St. Augustine’s into a timeout. Out of the timeout, the Falcons went on a 20-3 run and held a 21-10 lead with 6:26 left in the first half. St. Augustine’s took a 10-point advantage into the break.
In the second half, senior center Keith Darden hit a jumper with 18:39 on the clock. Unfortunately for the Blue Bears that was the last field goal they hit until there were only five seconds left in the contest. The only points for the Blue Bears in that stretch came at the charity stripe.
Sophomore forward Greg Henry led the Blue Bears with nine points and senior forward Megail Cannon scored seven points and grabbed six rebounds.
The loss spelled the end of the Blue Bear careers of Megail Cannon, Aaron Caruthers and Keith Darden.