Sargent?s career night ends with Jackrabbit loss

Wednesday, November 19

Richmond, Va.

7:30 p.m. ET

South Dakota State University

Virginia Commonwealth

11/19/2008 1:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

RICHMOND, Va. ? South Dakota State sophomore Clint Sargent scored a career-high 20 points and pulled down a career-high ten rebounds for his first-career double-double, but it came in a loss, as Virginia Commonwealth downed the Jackrabbits 72-56 on Wednesday night in Richmond, Va.

The Rams, who entered the week ranked No. 6 in the collegeinsider.com mid-major poll and received votes in the Associated Press Top-25, improve to 2-0 on the season, while the Jacks fall to 1-2.

Junior Garrett Callahan led the Jacks with 21 points, 13 of which came in the second half, the last eight of them from the free-throw line.

Sargent reached his career-mark going 6-of-13 from the floor, 5-of-9 from three-point range and a perfect 3-for-3 from the charity stripe.

No other Jackrabbit scored more than four points in the loss, as the rest of the team combined to score 15-points.

Sophomore Anthony Cordova led all players with 11 rebounds to go with his four points.

VCU all-American and NBA prospect Eric Maynor led all players with 29 points on 11-of-19 shooting.

The Rams scored the first five points of the game, and although the never trailed for the rest of the game, they could never put it out of reach, as the Jacks hung tough throughout.

SDSU fell behind by as many as 16 points in the first half, but battled back to cut the deficit to just eight points at the half at 38-30.

The Jacks cut that lead to six on a Callahan lay-up to start the second half, only to see VCU go on a 9-2 run to stretch its lead to 13 at 47-34 with just over 12 minutes to go in the game.

Sargent sparked an 8-0 Jackrabbit run with five of the eight points to get SDSU back within five at 47-42 with 9:56 to play, but the Jacks could get no closer.

Five quick points by Maynor in less than a minute got the Rams lead back up to ten, and even though the Jacks got the lead back down to seven on a trio of Sargent free-throws, the Rams used an 11-0 run to increase the lead to 22-points and secure the VCU win.

Wednesday's game marked the first of two games in the Cancun Challenge played on U.S. soil, the second comes on Sunday, when the Jacks square off against Drake in Des Moines. That game can be seen live on Mediacom cable channel 10 in Brookings.

Tip-off from the Drake Knapp Center is scheduled for 2:05 p.m.

Following the Drake game the Jacks host Upper Iowa on Tuesday in Frost Arena at 7 p.m., before heading off to Cancun, Mexico for the final two games of the Cancun Challenge on Nov. 29 against Central Florida and on Nov. 30 vs. Central Arkansas.