Men's Basketball took home a hard earned Sun Conference victory this past Saturday, advancing to 12-9 on the season and 4-4 in conference play as they knocked off the conference leaders Ave Maria at home, holding the number two offense in the NAIA to just 77 points. The Gyrenes average 95.9 per game. A blistering offensive attack aided the Fire to a needed conference win.
Southeastern shot 55.9 percent, boosted by a 60 percent first half effort. After falling behind early 10-3, the Fire unleashed and ran into halftime up 18. The second half was more tightly contested, but given the first half lead, the Fire kept up with the high flying Gyrenes, getting up by as much as 28 and securing a 93-77 win behind balanced scoring. The Fire had five scorers in double digits with graduate guard
Reggie Mesidor leading the way with 22 points.
This year the Fire have experienced many close games, and having three games go into overtime. Mesidor leads all Fire scorers with 16.4 points per game,
Makai Vassell and
Joshua Blazquez follow close behind with 14.8 and 12.4 points per game, and
Anthony Duncan works the paint shooting 63 percent from inside.
Defensively, the Fire force 14 turnovers per game and hold opposing offenses to 73 points per game, also adding 4.2 blocks every contest going above the standard this past Saturday as the Fire totaled eight rejections with Duncan compiling five blocks.
This week the Fire take to the road twice this week to avenge a loss to Keiser University (14-7, 4-4 SUN) and fight for another victory over Webber International University (15-7, 3-5 SUN).
January 10 of this year, the Keiser University Seahawks paid the Fire a visit and escaped with a 84-81 overtime victory over Southeastern as the Fire were unable to close out the game having a four point lead with 24 seconds left. Vassell led the charge for the Fire in that contest, putting up 26 points on 64 percent shooting.
A major component for Southeastern in this rematch would be containing Keiser's point guard, Calvin Sirmans, and guard Brandon Farmer who carried the Seahawks offense in the first contest. Sirmans finished the game with 29 points, and Farmer scored 20. A second key would be to connect from three, as the Fire went only 8-27 shooting 29.6 percent in the first go round.
Keiser is led by aforementioned Sirmans who averages 17 points per game, Forward Vincent Miszkiewicz who averages 17.1 points per game and is also one of the NAIA's leading rebounders with 15.8 rebounds per game. Defensively, the Seahawks force 13 turnovers, and collect seven steals per matchup.
The Fire will be tipping off from West Palm Beach at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
On Saturday, the Fire will travel down to Babson Park, home of the Webber International Warriors. A team that the Fire were able to defeat at home earlier in the season 74-70. In the contest the Fire trailed at half by three, 29-26, and were shooting only 34 percent from the field. Despite falling behind by seven midway through the second half, the Fire battled back using two separate 7-0 runs to pull out a home conference victory.
Webber is coming off a one-point win at Keiser after dropping their two previous games to the second and third place teams in the league.
The Warriors are led by Tyrone Nesby IV and Eden Holt who average 22 and 19 points per game. Holt also dishes out an impressive 4.9 assists per game. On the defensive side of the court, Jordan Golden grabs rebounds with 166 total on the season and Holt leads the team in steals with 35.
Saturday's game at Webber will start at 4 p.m.
