MARSHALLTOWN — Southeastern Community College men’s basketball coach Lorenzo Watkins was expecting a tough game Saturday night.
After all, Marshalltown played the Blackhawks tight in their previous meeting this season at Loren Walker Arena.
And with a tough shooting background at Marshalltown, Watkins was looking for a low-scoring, defensive struggle in the Region XI regular-season finale.
Instead, SCC came out and blew the Tigers’ doors off in a 69-33 rout on Saturday at the MCC Student Activity Center.
The victory clinched the No. 2 seed for SCC in the upcoming Region XI Tournament.
SCC (16-12 overall, 2-2 Region XI) will host Marshalltown (8-22, 0-4) in a Region XI Tournament semifinal game at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Loren Walker Arena.
The winner will advance to the Regional XI Tournament championship game to play No. 3 Indian Hills (28-2, 4-0) at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Hellyer Center in Ottumwa.
SCC left no doubt in this game who the superior team was.
“The key was we got out to a great start that first five or six minutes,” Watkins said. “Our guys played great defensively. We held them to 17 points in the first half and 16 in the second half. We made them take a lot of contested threes. They made 14 of them against us at our place, but they were 3-of-30 Saturday.”
Jaleel Donley led the Blackhawks in scoring with 13 points. Trevan Krumrei and Kalvyne Eby each added 12 points, while Brady Martin, Khalyn William-Thomas and Fallou Dioum each scored seven points. Aric Hines added four points, Prophet Fields scored three points and Emmanuel Jentzen tossed in two points.
Donley led the Blackhawks with seven rebounds, while Martin had two assists and Donley had a steal.
SCC outrebounded Marshalltown, 42-19.
SCC now will face its biggest game of the season in a third game against Marshalltown.
“We have to go in and play our game, just like we have done all year,” Watkins said.