The LCC Moose started out their US Basketball tour with a game against the Horned Frogs of Texas Christian University and their experience and size combined with our 30+ hours of travel and jet lag proved to be too much as the Moose suffered a 64 point loss on November 6th.

Just 20 hours after arriving in the US TCU's Brent Hacket and Henry Salter made sure that we didn't win in their gym as they combined for 37 points and 6 three pointers in LCC's loss. Mohammad Seck and Antanas Montrimavicius led LCC as Seck had 13 points and Antanas scored 9 points and had 10 rebounds. The moose started out ok, only down 20-17 but didn't help their cause by committing 47 turnovers and shooting very poorly as well. While the game might have seemed like a total loss, Coach Stacy Hollowell saw it as a good chance for the team to face some intense pressure and see where the team needs improvement.

On this trip, nine of the players are traveling to the US for the first time and five players are taking their first ever plane trip which may have contributed to some of the nervous mistakes. TCU also had taller and bigger players at every position and the results showed.

In game two, LCC traveled to Hattiesburg, Mississippi to play Southern Mississippi University on Friday. In this game, LCC put a scare into the Southern Miss Eagles, taking an early 6-2 lead and forcing an early time out for the coach to adjust. However adjust he did and Southern Miss took a 20 point lead into halftime. After the half the Eagles proved their dominance beating LCC 106-45 after Coach Hollowell put in his reserves in the last couple of minutes. RL Horton led the eagles with 23 points and LCC's Secks, Mohammad and Oumar led LCC with 14 and 9 points respectively. LCC did lead in one category blocking 4 shots and letting the eagles that they would not roll over and die. In the game, LCC had 29 turnovers against what coach Hollowell called a much better team then TCU. While the final score may not indicate much improvement, Southern Miss was a much stronger team and a relatively equal result to the first game showed improvement across the board. While the team has much to work on, there were moments of great play and hopefully good things to come.

So far, the trip to the US has been good for everyone involved. The team is bonding well, learning and experiencing a lot and should come home a stronger and better team.

LCC plays Sunday, Monday and Wednesday (New game against Dallas Christian) before heading home.

Keep up the support and if you can, come see the Moose play on Nov 17th in Kretinga at 14.00.

GO Moose