The Great Falls Electric have had quite the season going 21-3 during the TBL’s regular season and sweeping the Seattle (WA) Super Hawks 2-0 in their best-of-three TBL West Conference Division Finals on May 28 and May 30th.
The Great Falls Electric (24-3) utilized a strong second half to get by the San Diego Sharks (16-4), 118-102 on Friday night inside the McLaughlin Center at the University of Providence for Game 1 of the best-of-three West Conference Finals.
KD Moore and Tremont Robinson-White accounted for 51 of Great Falls’ 118 points. Robert Upshaw registered nine rebounds with seven coming on the defensive side and swatted away four shots for coach Steve Keller’s squad.
Billy White led the Sharks with 16 points while Kameron Rooks pulled down 16 rebounds.
Great Falls started off Game 1 with a pair of free throws by Lyle Hexom. San Diego’s Deion Davis and Kameron Rooks connected on a pair of field goals for a 5-2 lead. The next five minutes went back and forth with each team behind no more than one possession. At the end of the quarter, KD Moore made a successful driving layup with the Electric trailing 32-31 at the first twelve minutes.
Antwaan Cushingberry opened the second quarter by burying a three-point field goal with Great Falls taking back the lead (34-32). Two minutes into the stanza, Tremont Robinson-White (five points) and Dexter Williams Jr. (layup) gave the Electric their largest lead (41-34) with 9:56 left until halftime. Great Falls started to pull away with a 12 point advantage (55-43) at the 3:34 mark. Before the buzzer, Cushingberry was able to get a layup over a San Diego defender pushing the lead to 62-49.
Each team needed the first two minutes to score a basket with Deion Davis making a layup for the Sharks and Dexter Williams Jr. tossing in a long distance trey. The Electric, who were the visiting team on the scoreboard as the Sharks were designated as the home team for the 2-1 format, led by as many as 17 points but found their lead slip away to 11 points (93-72) before the third frame concluded.
The top team in the West Conference’s Pacific Northwest Division held a double digit lead over San Diego throughout the final quarter with their strong offensive output led by Tremont Robinson-White acquired seven of his 25 total points and Brandon Jones tallied all seven of his points during the last twelve minutes. Robert Upshaw (four points), KD Moore (five points) and Dexter Williams Jr. also scored for the winning team. The Electric earned the 118-102 win to lead the best-of-three series, 1-0.
