pulls out another TAAC win

By STEVEN G. WATSON

Sports Editor

Free throws, as most any coach will tell you, can win or lose a ball game. It won one for the Troy State Trojans Monday night.

It was the first time in six-straight games that the Trojans hadn’t scored more than 70 points, but the outcome turned out to be a familiar feeling as of late. TSU got by the Campbell Camels 69-64 notching its 10th Trans America Athletic Conference win of the season.

The Trojans (14-6, 10-1) hit 12 of their last 13 foul shots and finished an outstanding 21-of-24 from the charity stripe in the victory. Troy State made a tightly contested game look like free throw shooting exhibition down the stretch.

"I think the free throw shooting for us this year has been phenomenal," assistant coach David Felix said. "The only time all year that we haven’t shot them well we’ve lost the game. Free throw shooting has been key for us all year."

Troy State grabbed the lead for good with 4:07 left on a couple of Detric Golden foul shots, then, with under a minute to go, Donnie Pemberton nailed a 3-pointer from the top of the key to put TSU up 64-60. From there the Trojans sunk there free throws and watched as the Camels’ (8-12, 6-5) shooting fell apart late.

As a team, Campbell hit 7-of-14 from beyond the arch in the first half leading to a 35-31 lead at the break.

Sophomore guard Adam Fellers was phenomenal from all over, hitting 4-of-7 treys and notching 18 points, all in the first half. The second half was a completely different story however.

"He scored 22 on us at their place so we know he’s a great player in this league," Felix said. "In the second half Tote (Christopher) held him to only three. A lot of this win was from free throw shooting as well as Tote’s defense in the second half."

Finishing with a game-high 21, Fellers missed all but one shot in the second, while his teammates cooled off dramatically as well. After hitting 50 percent in the first, the Camels could only muster 6.7 percent from 3-point land and 31.4 from the field.

Golden led the way for the Trojans hitting for 16 points while three other TSU players scored in double figures. Jacova Jenkins and Pemberton notched 14 apiece, with Jenkins grabbing nine boards and Christopher punched in 11.

Next up for the Trojans is a road date with Stetson on Thursday. Tipoff is set for 6:30 p.m. and all the action can be heard on 100.3 FM.