ALPINE, Texas – The Black Hills State University men’s basketball team led from start to finish on Saturday night as they kicked off the 2024-25 season with an 82-59 victory over Texas Tyler in the first game of the Far West Texas Showdown. With the result the Yellow Jackets have now won three of their last four season openers and have additionally won ten of their last 11 contests against their regional foes from the Lone Star Conference since the 2019-20 season.
QUICK DETAILS
Score: Black Hills State 82, Texas Tyler 59
Team Records: Black Hills State 1-0, Texas Tyler 0-1
Attendance: 75
HOW IT HAPPENED
- From just inside the 3-point line of the right wing, Jaeton Hackley knocked down the first shot of the game 33 seconds into the contest and Black Hills State never looked back. The Yellow Jacket offense clicked early on as they jumped out to a 15-4 lead entering the first media timeout of the game with 14:39 left in the first half. BHSU connected on five of their first eight shot attempts of the game, which included a trio of 3-pointers from Tristan Hurdle, Hackley, and Caelin Hearne.
- Some back-and-forth action between the teams saw Texas Tyler trim the lead back down to single digits throughout the midway portion of the first half, drawing back as close as seven points (21-14) with 9:29 remaining in the first half on a turnaround jumper in the paint by Nikolas Gustavson.
- The Yellow Jackets began to put the game out of reach in the closing minutes of the first half as a Cam Lowe saw a driving left handed layup go through the hoop, sparking a 10-0 scoring run that was capped by Lowe going 2-of-2 at the charity stripe with 53 seconds left till the break to push the BHSU lead to 41-22. UTT ended the run with the final points of the half as Mate Kapanadze found Juan Pablo Camargo on a back cut to the rim for a left handed layup with 15 seconds left to make the score 41-24 at halftime.
- Black Hills State’s scoring run extended to 17-4 in the opening minutes of the second half as Lowe pushed the ball down the court in transition after a defensive rebound and dished the ball off to Joel Speckman for a lay in at the rim to make it a 48-26 advantage with 16:46 left in the game.
- The Patriots were able to briefly trim the lead back down to 17 points (51-34) with a 7-2 run of their own, however BHSU kept the energy up and strung together another 9-0 scoring run, pushing the lead to 61-34, that was sparked by a 3-pointer by BJ Woodruff who scored his first collegiate points with the deep left wing shot.
- Black Hills State had another answer to a 7-0 Texas Tyler run that cut the lead to 21 points (68-47), as Woodruff secured an offensive rebound and laid the ball in the hoop to spark another run of ten unanswered points for the Green & Gold as the margin grew to 31 points (78-47), the largest of the night.
- The game ended with UT Tyler going on a 12-4 scoring run to trim the margin to 82-59 in favor of the Yellow Jackets as the final buzzer sounded.
BLACK HILLS STATE STATISTICAL LEADERS
Caelin Hearne: 16 points, 4 3-pointers, 4 rebounds, 2 assists
Jaeton Hackley: 12 points, 4-of-6 field goals, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal
John Shanklin: 11 points, 5-of-6 field goals, 6 rebounds, 1 block
