MEN’S BASKETBALL

The #RV HU men’s basketball team continued their tear through the second round of league play with their sixth straight win, this time an 87-79 decision on the road over #16 Marian Saturday afternoon.

Huntington’s impressive string of wins includes knocking off #6 Grace and #7 IWU back-to-back. With today’s victory, the Foresters move to 19-6 overall, 11-4 in the league. Alford and crew are just one game back from Grace and IWU who are currently sitting on 12-3 records in CL play.

Lane Sparks was unstoppable. The 6-3 sophomore went off for a career-best 39 points on 13-for-20 shooting. When he wasn’t raining buckets, he was at the free throw line where he went a perfect 11-for-11. He also corralled seven boards to garner team-leading rebounding honors as well.

While Sparks stole the show, Zach Goodline was working on his own highlight reel. HU’s playmaker poured in 27 points with nearly half coming from the charity stripe. The 6-1 guard went 13-for-14 from the line. He also dished out four assists and snagged a pair of steals.

The deadly backcourt duo accounted for over 75 percent of their team’s offense. Their efficiency was off the charts as they shot a combined 63.3 percent from the field (19-for-30) and 96.0 percent from the line (24-for-25).

The first half  was a battle as the two teams leveraged for any sort of advantage. The opening 20 minutes featured six lead changes and just as many ties before the Knights took a 39-35 lead into the locker room.

After tying it up four times in the first eight minutes of the second period, Huntington took its first lead since the 6:19 mark of the first half on a pair of Sparks’ freebies. It was the start of a 7-0 run that drove up the guests’ lead to six at 58-52 with 11 minutes to go.

Consecutive three balls by Marian forced the game’s eleventh and final stalemate as Landen Jordan’s putback with nine minutes remaining not only gave Huntington a permanent advantage of 60-58 but kicked off 14 straight points by HU over a four-minute spell that essentially buried their hosts.

Marian chipped away at the deficit over the final five minutes but would get no closer than eight by the final buzzer.

In addition to Sparks and Goodline’s monster games, Jordan tossed in ten points for Huntington while Ben Humrichous added nine to go along with six rebounds.

Christian Harvey finished with 22 points and six assists to lead Marian. Brody Whitaker and Josh Bryan also recorded double figures for the Knights with 14 and 11 points respectively.