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Sophomore Zander Woodruff's 28 points and several pivotal plays by freshman Shannon Henderson lifted the Stars to a win in their NJCAA tourney opener.
Mike Ingram thought his Lansing Community College men’s basketball team was prepared for the national tournament. Monday, they showed him they were. The Stars held first-half leads as large as 19 points and put away Arkansas State Mid-South with several timely plays down the stretch by freshman Shannon Henderson on their way to a 96-88 win in their opening game at the NJCAA Division II Championships in Danville, Illinois.
The 17th-seeded Stars (25-7) now take on No. 1-seed Des Moines Area (31-1) at 11 a. m.
(ET) on Tuesday in Danville. LCC advanced out of the first round in the 20-team bracket by getting a huge game from the 6-foot-8 Henderson. Henderson, from Stockbridge, had two buckets, two rebounds and a blocked shot in a sequence that helped the Stars turn a narrow 82-78 lead with 3 minutes remaining into an 86-78 margin with 91 seconds left.
He had a similar sequence earlier in the half as 16-seed Arkansas State Mid-South was pushing to take the lead. “He made three incredible plays today,” Ingram said of Henderson, who had 10 rebounds and three blocked shots to go with his 18 points. “We missed a shot when it was a (four)-point game.