{"id":48966,"date":"2021-01-29T13:15:56","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T20:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rivals-clash-when-fort-lewis-college-welcomes-no-6-colorado-mesa-university\/"},"modified":"2021-01-29T20:15:56","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T20:15:56","slug":"rivals-clash-when-fort-lewis-college-welcomes-no-6-colorado-mesa-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rivals-clash-when-fort-lewis-college-welcomes-no-6-colorado-mesa-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Rivals clash when Fort Lewis College welcomes No. 6 Colorado Mesa University"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Akuel
Akuel Kot of Fort Lewis College has continued to average better than 10 points per game as a sophomore.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The odds may never have been stacked higher against the Fort Lewis College men\u2019s basketball team on its home court.<\/p>\n

Sixth-ranked Colorado Mesa University (10-0, 10-0 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference), owner of the longest active winning streak in all of NCAA Division II men\u2019s basketball at 13 games going back to the end of the 2019-20 season, will ride into Whalen Gymnasium at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Durango looking for a third consecutive win against the Skyhawks after FLC had won six in a row in the series dating back to 2016.<\/p>\n

Fans will not be permitted to the big game because of COVID-19 health guidelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re having a special season, 13 straight wins and 10 in a row this year. They\u2019re absolutely rolling,\u201d FLC head coach Bob Pietrack said of the Mavericks. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to find a way to slow them down a touch and put ourselves in a position in the end to have a chance to win the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know how good Mesa is. Our guys understand who we\u2019re playing, and I\u2019m sure Mesa does, too. COVID-19 has changed so much of the atmosphere this season that some of the rivalry stuff goes out the window. We know we would have had a wonderful crowd and it would have been a scene here with them ranked No. 6, but we are thankful for the opportunity to compete and get out there and go toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Mesa is fresh off an 81-80 overtime win against Regis at home last Saturday, while the Skyhawks haven\u2019t played a game since Jan. 3 because of COVID-19 issues within its own program and amongst its scheduled opponents. FLC has not played a game with its full roster since a 79-73 Dec. 19 loss at No. 1 Colorado School of Mines (8-0, 7-0 RMAC). The Skyhawks won\u2019t have their full roster available Friday night, either.<\/p>\n

\"Corey
Corey Seng of Fort Lewis College has showed up in the biggest moments of games this season and will be tasked with trying to slow down the red-hot Colorado Mesa Mavericks on Friday.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

FLC (2-3, 1-3 RMAC) has played only four conference games all season. No other team in the conference has played fewer than seven. On top of that, Friday\u2019s game will be only FLC\u2019s second conference game at home all season and second overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an abnormal month for us, but we\u2019ve worked really hard in practice and are thankful to be able to play a ballgame,\u201d Pietrack said. \u201cWhen you sat as long as we have, you think of it like when you were a little kid and got in trouble and had to sit inside at recess and you look outside and see everyone else playing. We\u2019re awfully tired of that, and we\u2019re excited to get back out to recess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the long layoff and roster uncertainty, Pietrack said Friday night\u2019s game will be about adapting on the fly against a Mavericks team that scores 78.2 points per game. FLC has scored 81.4 points per game to rank second in the conference but has allowed opponents 76.2 per game, which is 10th in the 14-team league.<\/p>\n

FLC will need more production across the roster behind Riley Farris\u2019 21.4 points per game, which ranks third in the RMAC. He leads FLC in every major statistical category with averages of seven rebounds, 4.4 assists and two blocks per game, all ranking him in the top-five in the conference. The Skyhawks have three players all averaging better than 10 points per game in guards Dunnell \u201cScottie\u201d Stafford, Corey Seng and Akuel Kot while senior wing player Will Wittman is also in the mix at 9.8 points per game.<\/p>\n

\"Brenden
Brenden Boatwright of Fort Lewis College will be a key contributor if the Skyhawks can knock off No. 6 Colorado Mesa University at home on Friday night.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Skyhawks will look for a big game from forward Brenden Boatwright, who has averaged six points and 2.5 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have worked hard in practice to get everyone integrated, and it\u2019s going to be about trusting the repetitions we\u2019ve had in practice,\u201d Pietrack said. \u201cWe want to get back to the level we were playing at before Christmas, so the question is if we can play at the standard we want to play. It\u2019s a challenge because we haven\u2019t played games. You can\u2019t simulate how tough RMAC games are in practice. I don\u2019t know exactly what we will look like, but there can be some advantages in the unknown, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Mesa forward Ethan Menzies has averaged 16.7 points and seven rebounds per game while he has shot nearly 60% from the field. FLC will also have to deal with the shooting of Georgie Dancer and Reece Johnson, who have 12.1 and 11.5 points per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be good on their ball screens and figure out a way to slow them down,\u201d Pietrack said. \u201cMenzies is excellent in the post, and Dancer is an all-league guy. They have a ton of good players, and we have to play a great game.\u201d<\/p>\n

jlivingston@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mavericks enter with nation\u2019s longest active winning streak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[600,992,132,29,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-newsletter","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48966"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}