Limestone shuts down Knights

Photo by LARRY HILLIARD Limestone center Colin Pond tries to shoot over Benny Zacharias during second-half action Monday. The Saints wrapped up the regular season with a 62-51 win over the Knights. The first time the teams met at St. Andrews, Limestone was rapidly becoming an afterthought in the CVAC.

How things have changed.

After losing four of their first six conference games, the Saints won 10 of their next 14 games after beating the Knights 62-51 in the regularseason finale on Monday.

“What an accomplishment for the players to finish at 12-8 after starting 2-4,” Limestone coach Larry Epperly said. “This gives us our second winning season in a row.”

The Saints are assured a first-round bye in next week’s conference tournament that goes to the top four teams. They will also host a secondround tournament game.

Epperly credited the leadership of the team’s lone senior Marquintus Jones for the team’s turnaround.

“It was the leadership and will of Marquintus,” Epperly said. “He just kept working in practice and just willed the other players to keep working. It was his attitude and work ethic not to accept losing.”

Jones finished with 16 points. Point guard Shawn Poppie paced the Saints with 17 points.

“We knew we would put some games together,” Poppie said. “We got great senior leadership. I thought the team had a lot of potential once we all got learning how (Coach Epperly) wanted us to play.”

The ball wasn’t falling through the nets for the Saints in the first half. Limestone shot just 27 percent to trail 21-20 at the break.

Poppie admitted the Saints were pressing in the first half after their emotional win over No. 3ranked Barton on Saturday.

“It puts pressure on you because you want to do the same thing (against St. Andrews),” he said.

The Saints heated up in the second half to take a 49-38 lead after three-pointers by Terrell Smith and Marq Bell.

Poppie then drove to the hoop, hit a layup over a St. Andrews defender and converted a foul shot to stretch the Saints’ cushion to 54-42 with 4:42 remaining.

The Saints will now have a 9-day layoff before their conference tournament.

“Right now the way we are playing, you would like to play. But it’s just something we have to deal with,” Epperly said.