MT. CARMEL, Ill. -- Gary Clay hit four free throws in the final nine seconds as Wabash Valley fended off a last-ditch rally by Shawnee to post a 68-63 Great Rivers Athletic Conference men's basketball victory on Monday night.
The Warriors, in ending a two-game slide, moved to 10-9 on the season and 3-5 in the GRAC. Shawnee, with a third straight loss, fell to 7-9 and 2-5.
A more relieved-than-anything-else WVC coach Isaac Wodajo was thankful for the win by his team.
"The guys just needed to see a win, and feel it," Wodajo said. "We have not felt a home win in about one month. It kind of relieves some pressure."
The Warriors seemed to have things in hand, with a 64-50 lead and only two minutes remaining. But suddenly Shawnee forced four Warrior turnovers in short order and scored 11 straight points to pull to within one-possession striking range, 64-61, with 32 seconds left.
"We broke the press four or five times, exactly how we wanted," Wodajo said. "Then for some reason the last two minutes we could not get the ball over half-court. We were losing our minds."
Brandon Rayzer-Moore, who finished with a season-high total of 21 points, said it became a matter of "slowing ourselves down."
The Warriors did, just in time.
"Their press really got us sped up and we were causing turnovers," said Rayzer-Moore of the Warrior stat line which showed a season-worst total of 27. "We told ourselves that we just needed to regroup and take care of the ball."
Shawnee managed to get only one shot away prior to Clay's game-clinching free throws.
In building his own impressive stat line, Rayzer-Moore said he "felt more loose today and saw more shots going in early. That led into other stuff for me, like getting to the rim and finishing."
Clay led Wabash Valley with 25 points. Jakobi Heady finished with 14
Shawnee was topped by Ashton Young and A.K. Hazley, each scoring 15 points.
The last Warrior win at Spencer Sports Center had come 37 days prior, on Dec. 10 of last year, a 108-103 double-overtime victory over Southwestern.
The win over Shawnee was more than just a welcome relief, though, because of what looms next.
"Coming up we have the hardest two-game stretch in junior college basketball," said Wodajo of road games at ninth-ranked Vincennes (18-2) on Wednesday and at No. 6 John A. Logan (14-2, 6-0) on Saturday.
"I just told our guys that no one is going to bet on us, so let's go out there and play loose, play confident, play aggressively. We have nothing to lose. Only the guys in this locker room believe."
The Vincennes game has a scheduled tipoff of 6 p.m. CST, while the weekend game in Carterville begins at 3 p.m. CST.