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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – @lckearse had a status of “Well rested and ready to do some damage #gameday.” @
Alex Bodney succinctly put “GAMEDAY!!!!” as one of his updates. In response to a friend pointing out that basketball season being over before Spring Break, @WaYneDJR replied, “No it won't. We will be in the national tournament #wins.”
The inspiring “tweets” and hashtags from the second-seeded Eckerd College men's basketball program on the social networking platform Twitter indicates the focused mentality the team has embraced and maintained while taking care of business in the opening round of the Sunshine State Conference Tournament.
Beat No. 7 Barry University in the quarterfinals.
Check.
Next on the list. Beat the Lions from Saint Leo on Saturday at noon.
Newly-crowned Sunshine State Conference Player of the
Lance Kearse and his troops have their sights set on advancing in the tournament bracket to Sunday's conference championship game against either No. 1 Florida Tech or No. 5 Florida Southern College.
The Tritons (20-7 overall) will storm into Lakeland and the Jenkins Field House looking for revenge after engineering a strong second-half comeback that fell just short in the Lions' 58-49 triumph less than two weeks ago.
As EC Head Coach
Tom Ryan sits back in his chair and thoroughly explains how a one-point Saint Leo lead with 43 seconds left to play turned into a near double-digit final decision, it's clear that he would like to hit the rewind button in the Feb. 22 matchup.
“Saint Leo packs it in and defends very well; they also have a dynamic guard (Marcus Ruh) who can score at will,” Ryan said.
What transpired down the stretch in Saint Leo (17-10 overall) mirrored the back-and-forth sequences in the final moments of EC's one-point home win against Saint Leo on Jan. 18, a matchup that featured six ties and eight lead changes.
Saint Leo's Marcus Ruh was third to Kearse and Florida Tech's Simon Cummings in the SSC Player of the Year balloting and he was joined on the First-Team All-SSC list with Trent Thomas. The Wisconsin products Ruh and Thomas, respective transfers from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and North Dakota State College of Science, combined to average over 27 points per game.
Lions' Head Coach Lance Randall was also tabbed the SSC Coach of the Year.
Live stats and a live video feed of the game will be available
FREE courtesy of host Florida Southern on FSCMocs.com. EckerdTritons.com will do a coinciding
FREE audio broadcast as
Nick Agress and Ian Dooley bring you the action on press row.
We will also be providing real-time tweets from our Twitter account (@ECTritons) as well regular postings to our Facebook fan page (
www.facebook.com/eckerdtritons).
As mandated by the league in the handbook, admission for the SSC Tournament is as follows:
$12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for students (ages 6-18 or with non-SSC college ID). All students from SSC institutions will be let in
FREE with their ID at the gate.
The SSC Championship games will be televised live on Sunday, March 4, on the Bright House Sports Network, available exclusively to Bright House Digital Cable subscribers on digital Channel 47. Viewers with HD televisions can watch the games on Channel 1147.
