Bears move into second place with two big wins

The Little Cypress Mauriceville Bears built a comfortable twenty-three point lead in the fourth quarter of their game with the Vidor Pirates. The Bears survived a barrage of late three pointers by the Pirates to win 61-52 on Tuesday, January 31, at the Dr. Pauline Colburn Hargrove Gymnasium.

The Bears scored the first three baskets one by Ben Elliott and two by Jayden Benton to take an early 6-0 lead. Vidor's Bryce Loftin hit his first of four threes to cut the LCM lead in half.

Benton scored his third bucket of the opening minutes followed by field goals from Alantheon Winn and Elliott to increase the Bear advantage to 12-3. Zander Lindsey and Loftin both made three pointers before Loftin sank a regular field goal to pull the Pirates within a point with seventy-five seconds remaining in the first quarter.

Noah Fuller had assisted on the basket by Winn and got a bucket of his own in the final minutes of the period. Elliott made his third field goal in the quarter to give Little Cypress Mauriceville a 16-11 lead after one.

After the Pirates and Bears exchanged baskets to start the second quarter Vidor sandwiched two threes around a field goal by Winn to make the score 20-19 in favor of LCM. Elliott scored only to see Lindsey follow up with another three to tie the game 22-22 at the 3:05 mark of the second.

The Pirates would only get a lone free throw from Loftin in the final three minutes of the half. The Bears got four points from Elliott, one field goal from Fuller, and Ty Blackmon nailed two three pointers late to open up a 34-23 advantage at the half.

The third quarter started with the momentum still rolling with Elliott and the Bears. Ben hit three baskets including one from beyond the arch to increase the LCM lead to eighteen points.

Da'Marion Morris made his first points of the game and it was 43-23 before Lindsey canned a three for Vidor with less than a hundred seconds remaining in the period. Little Cypress Mauriceville led 46-28 with eight minutes to play.

A later three-point play by Morris gave LCM its largest lead 54-31 about three minutes into the final quarter. The Pirate bombers found the range and sank four threes and three two-point field goals to close the margin to nine points at the end.

Elliott finished as the high scorer in the game with 23 points for the Bears. LCM Coach Brad Jeffcoat pointed out, "Tonight Ben Elliott scored his two thousand and first point as a Bear which is a school record. He's the leading scorer in the school's history passing Jason Throup from the late nineties. That's pretty exciting. I wanted to recognize Ben for that, I'm really proud of him, he's been good player for us.

Noah Fuller scored 9 points and Benton added 8 for LCM. The Pirates got 21 points from Loftin and 18 from Lindsey.

The win moved Little Cypress Mauriceville to 5-3 in district. "Once again there are lessons to learn from the win, we've got to improve on some things. At the end of day that's a win we needed to get and we are moving on to Lumberton," Jeffcoat analyzed.

Little Cypress Mauriceville went to Lumberton on Friday and won another big game. The Bears moved into sole possession of second place with the 42-32 victory over the Raiders.

Ben Elliott was again the leader for the Bears with 22 points and 10 rebounds. Da'Marion Morris contributed 8 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists for LCM.

With three games left in district Little Cypress Mauriceville was in second place with a 6-3 record trailing only the undefeated Silsbee Tigers. Bridge City and Jasper were both 5-4 with Lumberton at 5-5 a further half game back of the Bears.

This week Little Cypress Mauriceville played at home against the Jasper Bulldogs on Tuesday. On Friday the Bears play at West Orange Stark before finishing the regular season next Tuesday at Silsbee.

The Bridge City Cardinals played just one game last week on Friday and it was a thriller. The Cardinals clipped the Pirates 59-57 at Vidor with a strong fourth quarter to take the lead.

Trailing by four points entering the final period Bridge City staged a marvelous comeback. The Cardinals outscored the Pirates 20-14 In the final eight minutes of the game.

Walker Britten was the leading scorer for the Cardinals with 16 points while also dishing out 3 assists. Lincoln Breaux scored 13 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, and assisted on 3 other Bridge City baskets.

Bryce Linder made significant contributions with his 11 points and 6 rebounds. Defensive stars the Cardinals were Rayburn Hebert and Aiden Gutierrez with 3 steals apiece adding 9 and 6 points respectfully.

Bridge City played at home against the Lumberton Raiders on Tuesday. The Cardinals' next game is Friday at Jasper before closing the regular season in Bridge City against the West Orange Stark Mustangs on Tuesday, February 14.