LAKE CHARLES, La. \u2013\u00a0Top-seeded Stephen F. Austin erased a halftime deficit and survived a thriller Tuesday night, as Southland Player of the Year Keon Thompson delivered the decisive play in the final seconds to lift the Lumberjacks to a 60\u201358 victory over Texas A&M\u2013Corpus Christi and into the Southland Conference Championship Game.<\/p>\n
SFA advances to the title game for the first time since 2018 and will face the winner of No. 2 McNeese and No. 3 UTRGV at 4 p.m. Wednesday on ESPN2.<\/p>\n
A&M-Corpus Christi controlled much of the first half behind a scorching offensive start. The Islanders shot nearly 70 percent from the field early and built a lead that stretched to nine points, eventually taking a 39\u201332 advantage into halftime while dictating the tempo.<\/p>\n
The Lumberjacks flipped the momentum after the break.<\/p>\n
SFA opened the second half with a defensive surge, forcing turnovers and attacking the paint to slowly erase the deficit. A 12\u20132 run midway through the half helped the Lumberjacks take their first sustained lead of the night as the game tightened into a possession-by-possession battle down the stretch.<\/p>\n
A&M-Corpus Christi answered every push.<\/p>\n
With under two minutes remaining, Nicholas Shogbonyo drilled a clutch three-pointer to tie the game at 58\u201358, setting up a dramatic finish.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Keon Thompson delivered.<\/p>\n
With seconds remaining, Thompson jumped a passing lane, snatching a steal and racing the other way for the go-ahead layup with 12 seconds left, giving SFA the lead for good and igniting the Lumberjack bench. The Islanders had one final chance, but SFA\u2019s defense forced a contested look as time expired to seal the win.<\/p>\n
Thompson led the Lumberjacks with 24 points, six rebounds, five assists, and three steals, scoring 16 of his points in the second half to fuel the comeback.<\/p>\n
Lateef Patrick Jr. added 13 points, while Chrishawn Christmas chipped in key baskets during SFA\u2019s second-half rally.<\/p>\n
A&M-Corpus Christi was led by D.A. Houston with 16 points and Nicholas Shogbonyo with 15, as the Islanders knocked down seven three-pointers and pushed the top seed to the brink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAKE CHARLES, La. \u2013\u00a0Top-seeded Stephen F. Austin erased a halftime deficit and survived a thriller Tuesday night, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-199551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}