In his last game at Fort Benning, Solomon Loving, who will PCS in January, helped give the 11th Engineer Battalion its first Commander’s Cup Preseason Basketball Tournament trophy in almost four years Dec. 13 as the Team A Engineers defeated MEDDAC 62-57 in overtime.
With the Engineers down 54-51, Loving hit a game-tying 3-pointer with two seconds remaining to force overtime. “Somebody had to shoot the shot,” Loving said. “One of our best shooters already took the ball out. I picked my man well enough to where I turned around with one dribble and pulled the trigger.”
Counting last year’s preseason basketball tournament, the postseason basketball tournament in February, the postseason volleyball tournament and the postseason flag football tournament, MEDDAC has been notorious this year for surviving the loser’s bracket and then beating the team out of the winner’s bracket to force a tiebreaker.
“I didn’t want that,” Loving said. “I didn’t want to play another game.”
The Engineers used the momentum supplied by the 3-pointer to take control in overtime by going on a 7-0 run. After the game, Engineers coach Bernard Jones said “he was thrilled” because basketball had been the one title that appeared to elude the Engineers over the past few years.
“We finally crossed the hurdle,” Jones said. “We’re going to be even tougher (in the regular season). We’ve had little practice; once we work out the kinks, we’re going to be tough to deal with.”
The Engineers controlled the tempo in the first half and led by as many as 14 points in the second half. But MEDDAC picked up the tempo with a quicker, more aggressive style of play, forcing turnovers and getting quick scores. MEDDAC went on a 20-5 run before Loving hit the game-tying 3-pointer.
“I knew we had enough energy to come back,” MEDDAC coach James Johnson said.
MEDDAC had to defeat the 11th Engineer Battalion Team B the same night before facing Team A.
“I told them the game was by no means over,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of pride in this team.”
Johnson said nothing went wrong defensively for MEDDAC on the final play of regulation.
“I told my guys to challenge the shot,” he said. “They did and it went in. Nothing you can do about it; it was a good shot.”
Justin Huff led the Engineers with 22 points while Dionte Clayborn had 16 points. Jonathan McKinney scored 17 points for MEDDAC.
The preseason tournament marked the final intramural competition for 2011. The regular season will begin Jan. 10. The 2011 Commander’s Cup champion banner will be unveiled Jan. 11 at Smith Fitness Center.
