After 250 minutes of play, a double overtime game, and a total of 197 total game points the Elon Phoenixes grabbed their second victory this season over the Cougars, 99-98.
After the long and pressing game CofC interim head coach Mark Byington gave the guys only 30 seconds to shed frustration over the game.
“I looked all of them in the eye (in the locker room) and said, ‘if you want to feel bad about not winning this game and some of the mistakes you made, feel bad for about 30 seconds. We are going to move on and watch the great things we did.’ We made some great plays tonight,” said Byington.
Collectively the team was able to cut into a 23 point deficit they were in behind the Cougars. Andrew Lawrence put up an astonishing career high of 32 points and dished out 8 assisted. Re-meeting his career high of 17 rebounds and coming on his 11th double-double, Trent Wiedeman came out with a great showing. Each of athlete’s performances were duly noted by Coach Byington.
“Andrew Lawrence was tremendous. Trent Wiedeman in the second half and in the overtime was tremendous. Our guys gave everything they had. I didn’t like the start and I was disappointed in our focus and concentration. But, I was happy they worked themselves out of it. They kept battling and making plays. The overall message to them tonight was that they played hard and played as hard as they could. I was very proud of them,” said Byington.
Also helping the Cougars with double scoring figures was Antwaine Wiggins (15), Matt Sundberg (13) and Adjehi Baru (11).
With 3:44 on the clock the Cougars took their first lead of the game, 85-84. As the clock wound down in regular time it was Lawrence with a drive to the rim for a layup to put the game into overtime.
An effort of between Wiggins and Wiedeman, each putting final second points on the board, put the Cougars into their first overtime.
Finally the Cougars and Phoenixes settled the night’s game in the second overtime where Elon took 17 points, while the Cougars only came up 16 points, in these final 25 minutes.
Before the team comes home, they will play a game against Appalachian State (9-12, 5-6) on Saturday, Feb. 4
