FHSU Athletics
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – After shooting lights out against Central Oklahoma in the quarterfinals, Pittsburg State did it again to Fort Hays State in the semifinals of the MIAA Tournament on Saturday night (March 9). Pittsburg State hit 14-of-20 3-point field goal attempts on its way to a 69-51 victory over FHSU. Fort Hays State is now 23-7 overall, while Pittsburg State moved to 21-9 overall.
The red-hot shooting Gorillas combined with a Tiger team struggling to hit shots in the first eight and a half minutes of the game equated into a 19-0 run to start the game for the Gorillas. A Conner Landell stick-back bucket at the 11:30 mark finally got the Tigers on the board, but it was a very large uphill climb from there and the Tigers never could get close enough to scare the Gorillas.
The nation's top defensive team was finally able to slow down the Gorillas just a bit, but could never generate enough offense to get the lead back inside of 12 points. The Gorillas led 37-21 at the half and then outscored the Tigers by just two in the second half.
The Gorillas hit 11-of-21 (.524) 3-point field goal attempts against UCO in their quarterfinal on Friday night, and then upped their percentage to .700 on Saturday night against the Tigers. In the two games, PSU is 25-of-41 from long range (.610).More than half of PSU's field goals were 3-pointers as it finished with 23 made field goals. The Gorillas shot 53.5 percent overall for the game. On the flip side, FHSU had one of its worst shooting nights of the year at 33.9 percent overall, including just 15.8 percent from 3-point range
Kaleb Hammeke led the Tigers with 10 points, followed by Landell and R.J. Crawford each with eight. Landell led the Tigers in rebounds with seven.
R.J. Forney was a perfect 5-of-5 from 3-point range and Tanner Mans was 4-of-4, getting all of their 27 points combined on 3-point field goals. Jeramy Shaw and Deshaun English II each had 17 points, combining for the other five 3-point field goals.
Fort Hays State will now await the NCAA selection show on Sunday night (March 10) at 10 p.m. on NCAA.com. The Tigers were No. 5 in each of the last two Central Region rankings released by the NCAA.