FHSU Athletics
TOPEKA, Kan. – Fort Hays State Men's Basketball saw their season end on Saturday in the NCAA Regional Quarterfinal round at Lee Arena. The Tigers fell to the No. 17/20 ranked Dragons of MSU Moorhead by a score of 69-62. FHSU finished its season at 22-10 overall, while MSU Moorhead extended its win streak to 12 games and moved to 24-8 overall for the season.
The Tigers did a tremendous job at slowing several of the offensive weapons MSU Moorhead had at its disposal, but unfortunately they did not have an answer for 7-foot, 1-inch center Jacob Jennison, who finished with a huge performance of 22 points and 21 rebounds to lead the Dragons. A 3-point play by Jennison with about 11 and a half minutes to play started to shift the momentum towards the Dragons after the Tigers led by seven.
The Dragons used a 7-0 run to get their first lead of the second half with eight minutes to play and they would never trail again. They used a 6-0 burst to take the lead for good and led by six with 3:27 to play. The Tigers got the lead down to four three times inside the final three minutes, but that was as close as they could get.
The Tigers set the tone defensively early in the game to control the pace of play. It was a back-and-forth battle in the first half with neither team leading by more than two for the first 15 minutes. The Tigers would enjoy the biggest lead of the first half, five points, reached twice late in the half. FHSU led 34-31 at the break and eventually had the largest lead of the game, eight points, twice early in the second half.
Kaleb Hammeke led the Tigers in points (16), rebounds (7), and assists (5). Kyle Grill added 12 points and six rebounds. R.J. Crawford reached double figures in scoring as well with 10 points. Traejon Davis had seven points and Shaun Riley added six in their final collegiate game.
Hammeke closed his storied Tiger career with 2,086 points, 585 rebounds, and 576 assists. He is the all-time leading scorer for FHSU Men's Basketball. Crawford finished with 1,145 points in his college career and Riley reached the 1,000-point mark for his collegiate career as well in this contest, finishing with 1,003.Aside from Jennison's big performance, Logan Kinsey had 16 points and Carson Johnson finished with 11 for the Dragons. Johnson came into the game averaging better than 20 per game and didn't crawl into double figures until late on free throws with Hammeke bottling him up most of the contest.
This was the ninth appearance in the NCAA Tournament under head coach Mark Johnson. The Tigers won at least 22 games in a season for the eighth time under his guidance.