Men's Basketball Win Streak Comes to a Halt

By Bryant Marks

BOLIVIA, NORTH CAROLINA -- Richard Bland College men's basketball falls at Brunswick Community College, Wednesday, despite a career day for sophomore forward Kenneth Southerland.

The Statesmen are now 8-8 for the season and 1-1 in the Region X Conference.  The team now finds themselves in the heart of conference play as 10 of their next 12 games will be games between Region X foes and will be the most important stretch of games of the season.  The first of those big games will be against Denmark Technical College in another Region X Conference game.  That game will be played on Saturday, January 18, back home at Statesman Hall.  Tip-off will be at 3 pm.

On Wednesday RBC met conference rival Brunswick at their home court in North Carolina in the teams' first matchup of the season.  After the tip Bland jumped out to a quick 5 point lead over the Dolphins.  The majority of the first half resulted in a back and forth game between the two teams with neither team able to create a gap between themselves and their opponent.  Late in the half, Brunswick put together one key possession after another to put some space between them and the Statesmen to finish the half with a double-digit lead.  With the second half now underway, Brunswick jumped out to an 18 point lead after coming out hot.  RBC would fight their way back to cut the lead to 9 with 14 minutes left in the half.  Bland struggled to put together stops on defense and could not gain on the Brunswick lead.  As Brunswick played a more consistent game in the second combined with Statesmen struggles on defense, RBC could not pull out the comeback and fell to Brunswick, 91-78.

Despite the Statesmen coming up short on Wednesday, forward Kenneth Southerland scored a career-high 41 points in this conference game.  Also contributing on the scoreboard was Terry Gray Jr. with 10 points and Antonio Puaauli-Pelham with 8 points.