Staff report

FAYETTEVILLE — Livingstone’s first-place men’s basketball team stumped its collective toe here Wednesday night at Capel Arena.

The Blue Bears, atop the CIAA’s Southern Division, fell to Fayetteville State, 77-69 — just the Broncos’ sixth win of the season.

Livingstone still leads the division with a 6-2 mark. Overall, the Blue Bears are 15-8 and have an 8-6 total conference record. Going into last night’s game, the team had won eight of its last nine contests.

Fayetteville State improves to 6-16 overall, 5-10 in the CIAA and 4-4 in the division.

Livingstone could not overcome the home team’s solid shooting. The Broncos shot 51 percent (28-of-55) for the game, led by Mark Burton’s five 3-pointers and 15 points. He hit some big shots late in the game as FSU put the win away.

Meanwhile, the Blue Bears shot just 45 percent from the floor (26-of-58) and dropped in just 6-of-19 attempts from 3-point land (32 percent).

Leading scorer Roger Ray, a junior guard, led Livingstone with 17 points, but FSU did a decent defensive job on him for most of the game.

Ray, who scored 25 points against the Broncos in a 74-60 LC win in Salisbury on Jan. 23, was held to just 5-of-12 shooting and had just 10 points, midway through the second half.

Ray also usually gets to the foul line often, but shot just seven free throws last night, making five of them.

Lydell Elmore and Cameryn Carpenter each scored 14 points for Livingstone, while Malik Smith had nine points and nine rebounds.

LC trailed at halftime, 36-33, and took its last lead at 50-49 with 10:11 left in the game. FSU then retook and kept the lead, although the Blue Bears cut the deficit to 57-54 on a Kenny Grant layup at the 6:34 mark.

A dunk from Elmore with five minutes left created another three-point game at 59-56 but Livingstone could not any closer than six points after that.

A 3-pointer from Burton with 1:47 remaining put FSU up, 75-66, turning out to be the clincher. Free throws 20 seconds later from Joshua Bryant gave the Broncos a commanding 11-point lead.

JaQuel Richmond followed Burton with 13 points for FSU and Bryant added 12.

 

NOTE: The Blue Bears return to action on Saturday at J.C. Smith (4:00 p.m.).

LIVINGSTONE (69) — N. Elmore, Ray 17, L. Elmore 14, Grant 8, Carpenter 14, Lewis 5, Fykes 2, Smith 9, Handley, Harris, Tate, McNeill.

FAYETTEVILLE STATE (77) — Richmond 13, Burton 15, Bryant 12, M. Crutchfield 7, Brown 9, Williams 7, Pratt 8, Hosch 6, J. Crutchfield, Webster.

Livingstone          33   36 — 69

Fayetteville St.    36   41 — 77