FHSU Athletics
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The MIAA quarterfinal between No. 2 seeded Fort Hays State and No. 7 seeded Central Missouri was a tale of two halves on Thursday at Municipal Auditorium. The Tigers used stifling defense in the first half to build a 22-point lead by the break, but struggled offensively in the second half and had to hold off a drawn-out surge by the Mules in the second half for a 67-61 win. The Tigers never trailed and reached 20 wins for the 13th time in Mark Johnson's tenure, now 20-9 overall. It was Johnson's 700th game coached at FHSU.
Fort Hays State opened the game on an 11-0 run over the first three and a half minutes before UCM scored about four minutes into the game. The Tigers held the Mules under 10 points for the first 13 minutes and eventually limited them to a 5-of-23 (21.7 percent) shooting performance from the field in the first half. The Tigers led by as many as 26 (37-11) before holding a 39-17 advantage at the half.
Central Missouri ramped up its defense to start the second half and started to gain confidence by hitting some shots. FHSU scored just two points in the first seven minutes and saw their lead cut down to 10 with 13:28 to go. UCM cut the lead inside of 10 at the 10:45 mark and eventually brought the lead down to three with five minutes to go. UCM cut the lead to just three two more times before Kaleb Hammeke made a huge 3-point field goal with 2:23 to play. That started a 6-0 burst for the Tigers to get the lead back to nine with 36 seconds remaining. They did enough late at the free-throw line to hold off the Mules, winning by six.
Hammeke led the Tigers with 22 points. He hit seven field goals and seven free throws. He was the only Tiger to reach double figures in scoring. R.J. Crawford had nine points, while Kyle Grill and Traejon Davis each had eight. Hammeke also led the Tigers in assists with six, moving into third alone on the assists list at FHSU.FHSU shot 46 percent overall from the field and held UCM to just 33.3 percent for the game. UCM held a nine-point advantage at the free-throw line.
DeAirius Barker led the Mules with 16 points, followed by Josh Nwankwo with 15 and Elijah Farr with 12.
UP NEXT
Fort Hays State moves on to Saturday's semifinal at 2:15 p.m. against the winner of Friday's quarterfinal between No. 3 seed Rogers State or No. 6 seed Missouri Western.