Cougars' Fight Hard but Fall Short in 65-62 Loss at Francis Marion

Florence, S.C. -- Columbus State and Francis Marion swapped the lead five times and fought to three ties in the final 10 minutes of play on Sunday before the Patriots finally secured a hard-fought 65-62 win over the Cougars. CSU is now 8-6 overall and 2-3 in Peach Belt Conference play, while FMU moves to 14-2, 6-1.

"I am proud of our effort and proud of the way we fought," said CSU head coach Doug Branson. "I am excited about how hard our kids are playing and how they played today, but the bottom line is we lost a game that we had a chance to win because we just didn't quite execute well enough down the stretch and we couldn't get some shots to fall for us."

CSU led by as many as eight points early in the second half after leading 35-25 at the half. The Cougars maintained a lead until FMU's Kaylan Anderson and Mike Candelaria dialed long distance. Anderson hit a trey at the 15:12 mark that cut the margin to five, 37-32, and Candelaria hit a long three-pointer to tie the game at 37 with 13:23 left. That capped an 8-0 spurt for FMU, but he was not done. After the Patriots tied the game again on a Simel Boyd layup, Candelaria again dropped in a shot from deep to give FMU the lead and then hit another one on the next possession to make it 45-39. Overall, he led the Patriots on a 16-2 run as they took the six point lead with 11:56 to play.

CSU, however, did not go away. Bryant Thomas and Blake Zamudio revived the Cougar offense with Zamudio's trey cutting the lead to 45-44 at the 11:23 mark. Donta Ridley re-gained the lead for CSU 20 seconds later as he hit a driving layup to make it 46-45. After Boyd tied the game for FMU, Thomas drilled a trey of his own to put the Cougars up 50-47 with 10:26 left.

From there the game went back and forth and stayed a tight battle. CSU held its last lead with 1:53 to play after Lamar Williams hit a jumper to put the Cougars up by two and then Kendrick Robinson hit a free-throw for the Patriots. After Williams had his running layup spin out, Edward Gullatte gave FMU the lead with 1:01 to play on a layup at the other end. CSU tehn missed shots on two straight possessions before Robinson sank two free-throws to make it 65-62 with seven seconds left.

Williams got the ball up the floor and launched a 25-footer from the head of the key just before the buzzer. His shot banked off the glass, appeared to go down into the cylinder and then spun around the rim and fell off as time expired, giving the Patriots the win.

Williams and Ridley led CSU with 14 points each on the day. Williams was hampered, especially in the second half, by foul trouble, but still managed double digits. Ridley added three assists and three steals. CSU shot 40 percent on the day from the floor, but went a disappointing 10-18 at the free-throw line. The Cougars almost equaled the Patriots on the boards, getting out-jumped 43-40.

Robinson's 13 points led FMU, along with his eight rebounds. Boyd added 12 points and Andrew Smith 10. Candelaria added nine points on his trio of tape-measure treys. The Patriots shot 48 percent in the second half to finish at 38 percent on the day.

CSU returns home to the Lumpkin Center on Wednesday to host rival Georgia College & State University. Game time is set for 7:30 p.m.