Box Score LAS VEGAS, Nev. (December 18, 2022) – The Pacific time zone was not kind to the Rollins Tars in their first game of the Holiday Hoops Classic ended in a 59-57 defeat at the hands of the #21 Dominican Chargers. Rollins now stands at 4-5 on the season.
The Tars were in control early on, with the first bucket coming on a steal from
Cade Long and a layup from
Kyle Marion. They then repeated the process of a steal and layup, this time seeing
Matheus Silveira convert. Other than that, neither team put points on the board leading to the first media timeout.
The Chargers would tie things up at four, but a Marion jumper would help Rollins regain the lead. The Tats never trailed for the remainder of the half. Neither team was particularly effective on offense, with multiple stretches of no points. As Dominican battled to stay in it, the Tars received a huge four-point play from
Cade Long to go up 18-12. The exclamation point came with forty seconds left when Marion was able to drive to his left and convert an and-one to give Rollins a 28-22 halftime lead.
Unfortunately for Rollins, the second half did not go as planned. It only took Dominican 90 seconds to tie things up, and they kept the scoring run going with nine more points on top of that to take a 37-28 lead. A bulk of those points came on free throws as the officials in the game did not allow any sort of physical play. Dominican was in the second-half bonus by the 12-minute mark.
Long snapped the cold streak with a layup, making it a 37-30 game. However, Dominican was able to maintain a lead, and extended it to a nine-point game multiple times. Around the ten-minute mark, a flurry of foul calls and turnovers sucked the momentum away from the Chargers, allowing Rollins to claw back in to the game.
A Marion free throw and a
Hutton Yenor jumper cut the lead to six. Yenor then added two free throws on the next possession, followed by two more freebies on the ensuing offensive attack. A Dominican three put them up seven, but Yenor and Long connected on back-to-back triples to cut the lead to one. Yenor then officially completed the comeback with two more free throws to give Rollins a 48-47 lead with 5:47 remaining.
The Chargers turned to big man Justin Copman who was able to splash a mid-range jumper, and follow that with a fast-break dunk to make it 51-48. Again, it was Yenor coming through at the line as he converted a pair (along with one from
Matheus Silveira) to tie it up at 51.
The free throw competition continued as the Chargers converted four in a row to go back up 55-51. Yenor converted one of two at the 1:40 mark. The Tars were able to force a turnover, but could not convert the game-tying three. Rollins then caused another turnover on defense, giving them the ball with 39 seconds remaining. Again, they failed to score on the possession, and the Chargers turned the rebound into a fastbreak layup. They then hit free throws down the stretch to hold on for a 59-57 win.
A total of 44 fouls were called in the game with 26 against Dominican and 18 against the Tars.
Yenor led the Tars in scoring with 21 points. Long and Marion had 13 and 11, respectively.
Rollins will have one more game in Vegas on Monday when they play the #11-ranked Missouri St. Louis Tritons at 3:15 PM EST.
