WARNER, Oklahoma -- The NOC Mavericks lost to 17th ranked Connors 73-65 in Warner Monday night.
Monday's loss dropped the Mavs to 22-7 on the year and 11-4 in OCAC play. Had the Mavs beaten Connors they could have shared the OCAC regular season title with a win against Seminole on Thursday. The Mavs, however, are in the second place in the OCAC one game ahead of NEO.
"We battled hard," said coach Donnie Jackson of his team's effort against the 17th ranked Cowboys. "I give our guys a lot of credit. Connors is a tough place to play and if you are going to win that game you have to truly beat them at the little things."
"I was really proud of how hard we played and we never backed down," Jackson added. "Trevion (Lamar) and Keiodre (Perry) made some big plays for us. We just couldn't get the stops down the stretch when we needed them."
Jackson then discussed Seminole, the Mavs opponent on Thursday.
"We need to win to lock up the second seed," he said. "NEO has won six straight games and are one game behind us so we need to finish strong heading to the Region 2 Tournament."
The Mavs shot the ball well from 3-point range making 15 but it was not enough as the Cowboys were 21 of 25 from the line including 14 of 16 in the second half.
Trevion Lamar led the Mavs with 19 points while Keiodre Perry added 14.
1 2—Total
NOC 35 30-- 65
Connors 39 34-- 73
NOC—Trevion Lamar 19, Keiodre Perry 14, Elafayette Stone 9, Chris Hamil 9, Khobe Austin-Johnson 6, Demaree King 6, Anselm Uzuegbunem 2.
Connors -- Langston 22, Jones 18, Coulter 14, Roy 11, Bobb 4, Putnam 2, Cockrell 2.