The Sam Houston State Bearkats had a chance to move up in the Southland Conference Standings with a three-game home stand.The Kats were not able to take advantage of the opportunity, dropping two of the three games.On Monday night, the Kats lost to the Northwestern State Demons 79-74.Northwestern shot 50 percent from behind the three-point line, connecting on seven of their 14 attempts.Donald Cole led the Kats with 24 points and nine rebounds.Sophomore guard Jason Stephenson said it was obvious the team never got into the game.”It’s hard,” Stephenson said. “I don’t know if it was the 5:30 game or what it was, but it felt like a lot of people weren’t in the game emotionally like we have the last two games.”You can tell when the effort is there and when it isn’t. Tonight it felt like we had the game, but the effort wasn’t there like it needed to be.”On Thursday night, the Bearkats wanted to jump out early on the Southwest Texas Bobcats.The Kats did exactly that, jumping out to a 15-point lead at halftime and coasting to a 96-82 victory over the Bobcats.”We really wanted to come out and blow them out,” said sophomore Rodrick Winters. “We went up by 26 or 27 and blew the lead towards the end, but we got back under control and finished off the game.”Felton Freeman and Jay Oliphant led the Kats in the victory with 22 points and 17 points respectively. Nineteen of Freeman’s points came in the second half while Oliphant hit six of his eight shots. The Kats also got big performances from Demetrice Sims, who hit five three-pointers for 15 points, and Robert Shannon, who had a double double with 10 points and 11 assists.Center Eddy Fobbs had 12 points, eight rebounds and four blocks in what Bearkat coach Bob Marlin said was his best game of the season.”We knew what we had to do in the post today,” Fobbs said. “I just did my best and we did our best to win.” On Saturday night, the Kats lost to Texas San Antonio Roadrunners 82-75 in overtime.James Joseph shot 60 percent from behind the three-point line hitting six of 10 and center McEverett Powers scored 22 points and grabbed seven rebounds in the second half to lead the Roadrunners to victory.Sam Houston, a 69 percent free throw shooting team for the season, shot just 54.1 percent from the line for the game missing 16 free throws in regulation.”To be at the top of the league in free throw percentage and to limp in at 54.1 percent, you can’t expect to win,” Marlin said. “You could tell all game, you knew we were going to want one more of those at the end, all we needed was one more.”The Kats were led by Sims and Barlow in the defeat. Sims sank his first four three-pointers of the game en-route to 17 points and Barlow scored a season high 14 points. Jay Oliphant had 12 points for the Kats while Donald Cole scored 11 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.
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