Cardinal men close gap on CSI in conference standings

TWIN FALLS — "All that matters now is the color of the jersey." 

Still with plenty to be determined, North Idaho College helped itself a little more with a 77-67 win over Southern Idaho in a Scenic West Athletic Conference game on Saturday. 

NIC (17-11, 7-6 SWAC) trails CSI (20-8, 8-5) by one game for second in the conference with two games remaining. The Cardinals won two of three games against the Golden Eagles this season. 

"Mathematically, we're still fighting for seeding, but it was great to get that win," NIC coach Corey Symons said. "Salt Lake could tie us, but we've got the head-to-head (2-1) on them too, so we'll likely play CSI again at regionals. All that matters now is the color of the jersey."

Freshman Ne'quan Brown scored a team-high 23 points for NIC, which limited CSI to 16-of-61 shooting.  

"Especially in the first half, we really guarded them well and made them take bad shots," said Symons, whose team led 43-22 at halftime.

Sophomore Vaughn Weems, who leads the NJCAA in scoring at 27.2 points per game, had 19 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore Deng Diew had 13 points for NIC. 

"Those three (Brown, Diew and Weems) are playing really well right now," Symons said. "Ne'quan really sparked us and had a couple of dunks and 3-pointers to get us going. Dace (Pleasant) didn't shoot the ball really well, but had 10 rebounds and found other ways to impact the game. The guys are really playing well as a team right now." 

Snow (27-1, 13-0 SWAC) beat host Salt Lake (18-11, 6-8) 84-70 in Taylorsville, Utah, and Utah State-Eastern (11-12, 4-9) beat Colorado Northwestern (16-13, 2-12) 53-49  in Rangely, Colo., in other conference play on Saturday. 

NIC travels to Utah State-Eastern on Thursday. 

NORTH IDAHO 

Vaughn Weems 7-12 3-5 19, Deng Diew 6-15 1-3 13, Ne'quan Brown 8-11 3-5 23, Dace Pleasant 1-6 5-6 7, Tayshawn Colvin 0-2 0-0 0, Jeremiah Sibley 0-0 1-2 1, Sam Marbury 3-8 1-2 8, Jacori Ervin 3-4 0-2 6, Ajayi Simmons 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 28-60 14-25 77. 

SOUTHERN IDAHO 

Dale Griffin 0-1 0-0 0, Tanner Hayhurst 3-9 3-4 10, Khayri Dunn 1-10 6-6 9, Isaac Hawkins 1-6 2-2 5, Samuel Lupumba 1-3 7-8 9, Jalen Lyn 0-6 4-7 4, Gerry Guerrero 0-1 0-0 0, Amarco Doyle 8-12 3-4 24, Nathan Ahner 2-9 2-4 6, Marcus Fizer Jr. 0-4 0-0 0. Totals 16-61 27-35 67. 

Halftime — NIC 43-22. 3-point goals — NIC 7-16 (Weems 2-2, Diew 0-3, Brown 4-4, Marbury 1-3), CSI 8-25 (Griffin 0-1, Hayhurst 1-2, Dunn 1-6, Hawkins 1-2, Lyn 0-2, Guerrero 0-1, Doyle 5-6, Ahner 0-4, Fizer Jr. 0-1). Rebounds — NIC 48 (Weems, Pleasant 10), CSI 40 (Doyle 8). Assists — NIC 10 (Colvin, Marbury, Ervin 2), CSI 7 (Ahner 4). Team fouls — NIC 22, CSI 21. Fouled out — none. Technical fouls — Brown. 

To view the full article, please visit the CDA Press at this link.