The Carl Sandburg College basketball teams split an Arrowhead Conference 
double header Thursday evening at the John Lewis gym  with Black Hawk 
East.The CSC women (4-12/1-2)  rallied to win the opener 59-55 over the 
Lady Warriors(8-8/0-2) with the visitors taking the men's game 67-53.
Coach Mike Bailey's womens quintet was plagued by turnovers and their 
inability to convert layups missing 15 in all, but still managed to eke 
out the victory. "I'm happy with the win, of course," said Bailey., "but 
we know we didn't play very well offensively.  Despite all the turnovers 
and the missed layups we kept our defensive intensity."
The Chargers trailed 25-24 at the half but their defensive effort kept 
them close.  Sandburg opened the second half with a 13-3 run over the 
first six minutes to build a nine point lead.  Unfortunately when Bailey 
went to his bench things went flat. "Our bench did not play well tonight 
at all. When they entered the game, the chemistry we had disappeared.  
That let them (Black Hawk East) back into the game. Then we had a real 
fight on our hands."
The visitors finally regained the lead 44-43 with just under seven 
minutes to play. The lead exchanged hands several times over the next 
four minutes with Sandburg back on top at 55-52 after a put-back by 
Diamond Burt (Rich East HS) and a pair of free throws by Kate Morrisey 
(Stark County HS).  Galesburg sophomore Shelby Pacheco then nailed four 
free throws sandwiched around a three pointer by East's Tristan Troudt, 
to ice the win in the final twenty seconds.
"I'm really happy for Shelby to see her hit those free throws at the end 
to really ice the game," said Bailey.  "It's her first really big 
scoring night of the year."  She finished with 17 points while Burt lead 
the Chargers with 18.
In the men's contest, the Chargers (5-15/0-3) had one of their offensive 
dry spells to start the game scoring only two points over the first 11 
plus minutes to fall behind at the half 28-15. "What's really hard to 
take is the fact without the dry spell tonight and the one Tuesday at 
Sauk in the second half, we played our best basketball of the season and 
have nothing to show for it," said Coach Ryan Twaddle.
"We battled our tails off in the second half to get back into it. We 
guarded well, were able to create turnovers and easy scoring chances out 
of our defense," said Twaddle. "The difference in the game was the first 
five minutes of the second half when they (Black Hawk East) opened up 
the lead to twenty.  Had we stayed a lot closer in the first half, the 
run they put on us early after halftime wouldn't have meant that much."
The closest the Chargers got was 59-50 with just under three minutes to 
play as the Chargers Seth Wickert scored seven straight points but thats 
as close as Sandburg would get.  The Warriors (9-8/1-1) hit eight free 
throws down the stretch while the Chargers were misfiring getting just a 
free throw plus a basket in the final seconds from Marvin Nunn.
"You really have to give Black Hawk credit,"said Twaddle.  "They made 
their foul shots to keep us at bay over the final three minutes.
Zach Grover, a freshman from Macomb, lead the Chargers with 17 points 
including four of the five treys Sandburg made.  Robert Hearn 
(Springfield HS) and Seth Wickert (Macomb HS) each scored 11 while 
Spencer Pratt, (Olympia HS) chipped in with 10, going 8 for 10 from the 
charity stripe.
Game honors went to East's Thylas Perkins who poured in 22 including six 
treys.