Staff report

PETERSBURG,Va. — Livingstone doesn’t lose often in the CIAA by double-digits, but the Blue Bears were smacked 84-65 by Virginia State on the road on Wednesday.

The last tie was at 10-all. Virginia State constructed an 11-point halftime lead, stretched its advantage to a comfortable 20 by the middle of the second half, and prevented the Blue Bears from making any sort of rally.

Khyree Temple, the only Blue Bear who connected on a 3-pointer, scored 24 points and Detionne Leach had 18, but that was about it. Temple and Leach combined to shoot a sharp 16-for-28, but the rest of the Blue Bears combined for 25 percent.

LC normally thrives on balance, with scoring up and down the book, but that didn’t happen on Wednesday in front of 476 fans.

Francis Fitzgerald scored 18 and led four Virginia State players in double figures.

Livingstone (9-11, 5-6) got outscored 24-9 from the 3-point line, lost the turnover battle by a little and lost the rebound battle by a lot. Virginia State had a crazy number of offensive rebounds.

The teams shot almost equal percentages from the field, but with all those rebounds, Virginia State (15-7, 8-3) had 14 more field goal attempts.

While it’s a CIAA loss for the Blue Bears, it’s not a divisional loss, and the division is what counts most. LC remains 2-3 and tied four fourth in the six-team Southern Division.

Livingstone is on the road again on Saturday and will take on Claflin in Orangeburg, S.C.

Livingstone      30   35   — 65

Virginia St.       41   43    — 84

LC scoring — Temple 24, Leach 18, Tiller 8, Allen 8, Stoute 3, Broadnax 2, S. Tako 2.