GODFREY, Ill. – The No. 12-ranked Vincennes University Trailblazers hit the road to Godfrey for the ‘Battle of the Blazers’ against Lewis & Clark Community College a day later than originally scheduled and battled to come away with the 71-63 Region 24 road win.

The two teams traded baskets early Thursday night with the two teams remaining even on the scoreboard through the first part of the opening half of play.

VU was the first to break away after an 8-0 scoring run gave the Blue and Gold a 22-16 advantage.

Vincennes would grow their lead to nine points late in the first half before Lewis & Clark answered back late to cut the deficit to five heading into the locker room. VU led at the break 39-34.

VU came out of the break firing early in the second half, quickly grabbing their largest lead of the game at 57-41.

Lewis & Clark would again respond on their home floor, outscoring VU 13-1 to cut the Vincennes lead to four points midway through the second half.

This would be as close as the host Trailblazers would get however, as Lewis & Clark again cut the VU lead down to 65-61 late, before Vincennes closed out the game at the free throw line to come away with the 71-63 Region 24 road victory.

“I guess the biggest thing we did to win tonight was rebound,” VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. “I don’t know how many they had, but we had a ton of rebounds, so I think we probably dominated on the glass. Lewis & Clark didn’t score the ball well on us. They ended up with 63 and we gave them points off of turnovers. Defensively, we were probably holding them in the low 50’s if not for our offense giving them points.”

“Defensively, at times, we were not bad,” Franklin added. “There were times when we were getting enough stops, particularly early in the second half. But offensively it was a struggle, even though we ended up with 71 points. We turned it over. Shot poorly on the road again. It just didn’t seem like we were ever comfortable.”

“But, we probably won the game because we dominated on the glass,” Franklin said. “And defensively we didn’t let them score with any kind of consistency. We really let them back into it with turnovers that helped their offense.”

Vincennes was led offensively by sophomore Caleb Johnson (N. Preston, Nova Scotia) who finished with 16 points, three rebounds and a pair of assists.

Freshman Kris King (Washington, D.C.) came off the bench and nearly finished with a double-double, ending with 13 points, nine rebounds and a team-high three assists.

Freshman Michael Osei-Bonsu (Bolingbrook, Ill.) controlled the board for Vincennes on both ends of the floor, finishing with a team-high 13 rebounds, seven coming on the offensive glass to go along with five points.

“I thought Michael on the glass, after the start of the game, got revved up,” Franklin said. “We kind of got after him a little bit and got revved up and got on the glass pretty well. He got a couple of buckets in that time when we got a little bit of a lead, but we just couldn’t find him consistently inside. Part of it was the defense collapsing down and we had some opportunities to hit some shots and didn’t. But that would have loosened things up for him.”

“Offensively, I don’t know,” Franklin added. “We searched all night to find something that we could go to and we really just kind of hodgepodged it together to be honest. We didn’t shoot it very well from the field. We hit our free throws decently. We shot those fairly well and made those when we needed to. But offensively, individually, we didn’t really have anything where it needed to be tonight. We fought it all night. Give our guys credit, they fought it well enough to get the win. But it’s hard this time of year when I know we can play better and we have played better and we’ve played better at home.”

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – University of Southern Indiana Men’s Basketball senior guard Jelani Simmons (Columbus, Ohio) and senior forward Jacob Polakovich (Grand Rapids, Michigan) combined for 41 points and led the Screaming Eagles to a 78-74 win over Eastern Illinois University Thursday evening in Screaming Eagles Arena. The Eagles go to 13-9 overall and 6-3 in the OVC, while the Panthers are 7-15, 3-6 OVC.  

With the victory, USI has won five-straight games and remains in a five-way tie for first in the OVC. USI is tied with the University of Tennessee at Martin, Morehead State University, Tennessee Tech University, and Southeast Missouri State University for the first place slot at 6-3 in league play. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville fell to sixth after falling to Tennessee Tech this evening.  

USI got off to a great start with an 8-1 run and that seven-point lead methodically grew to as many as 20 points, 44-24, before the end of the half. The Eagles would leave the court with an 18-point halftime margin, 47-31.

The USI first half surge was led by Simmons, who dominated with 20 first half points on six three-point field goals in eight attempts and pair of free throws.

Polakovich was nearly as dominating in the first 20 minutes with a double-double before the intermission. He had 11 points on five field goals and a free throw in addition to grabbing 13 rebounds on seven offensive and six defensive boards.

The second half saw the Eagles and the Panthers trade buckets for the first 13 minutes until EIU used a 22-7 run to climb back into the game and cut USI’s margin to three points, 70-67, with 2:18 to play. USI would regain control down the stretch, helped by a big three-point field goal by sophomore guard Isaiah Swope (Newburgh, Indiana) to make the score 75-69 with 34 seconds to play

USI would seal the 78-74 victory with three free throws in the final seconds, one each by Swope, Simmons, and junior guard Gary Solomon (Detroit, Michigan)

The Eagles finished the game with four players in double-digits, led by Simmons, who finished with 21 points after adding one more in the second half. Simmons was six-of-12 overall, six-of-10 from long distance, and three-of-six from the line

Polakovich, who posted his second 20-20 game of the season, concluded the evening with 20 points, adding nine in the second half, and 24 rebounds, adding another 11 in the final 20 minutes. The senior forward had four 20 rebound games this season (most in NCAA Division I) and nine double-doubles this season

Swope and graduate forward Trevor Lakes (Lebanon, Indiana) rounded out the double-digit scorers with 11 points and 10 points, respectively

USI junior guard Tyler Henry (Brooklyn, New York) highlighted the evening by reach 1,000 career points with his five points in the first half. Henry has scored 578 at USI (2020-Present) and 422 points with Lane College (2019-20).