In Game Two, La Lumiere out of Indiana, ranked #11 in the BallisLife.com Fab 50, takes on the #2 ranked team in the country, Sunrise Christian out of Kansas. Both teams are stocked with high-major D-I talent and have made recent appearances in the GEICO Nationals over the last few years.
Sunrise Christian struck first with a three-point play from Grady Dick. La Lumiere responded on their next possession with a three from J.J. Starling to tie the game. From there, Sunrise took off. Dick hit a long two, Zach Clemence completed a drive and Kendall Brown (pictured) put back a miss. La Lumiere called a timeout down 9-3 with 3:11 left in the first. Chisom Okpara converted two free throws for La Lumiere but that didn’t stop the bleeding. Brown threw down a lob, Kennedy Chandler tossed in a three and Jaylon McDaniels dropped in a free throw to make the score 15-5 with a minute left in the first. Starling hit a floater for La Lumiere but a three from Willie Lightfoot of Sunrise gave them an 18-7 lead going into the second quarter.
It didn’t get any better for La Lumiere. Back-to-back threes, one from Kenny Pohto and one from Dick built the lead to 24-7. A three-point play from Okpara got La Lumiere back into the game but a steal and score from Brown and a transition basket from Pohto pushed the lead to 28-10 with six minutes left. Starling got La Lumiere back on the board with a drive but Sunrise wasn’t done. Grady scored on a drive and Chandler scored five points in a row to grow the Sunrise lead. A three from Starling made the score 35-15 in favor of Sunrise with three minutes to go in the quarter. Sunrise would stretch that margin by three by the end of the second quarter, up 43-20.
A 5-0 run by Sunrise to start the third period made things worse for La Lumiere. A 7-1 run by La Lumiere, culminating with a three from Starling got the deficit down to 49-27 with 4:31 to play in the third. However, that is as close as they would get. Sunrise finished out the third period with a 13-7 run to make the score 62-34 with one period left to play.
La Lumiere score the first four points of the final period but a transition bucket from Brown and a three from Chandler pushed the Sunrise advantage to 67-38 with five minutes left. La Lumiere made a bit of a run to make the score a bit more respectable but Sunrise won in a walkover 77-53.
Chandler led Sunrise with 20 points while Brown added 14 points, Lightfoot tossed in 13 points and Dick finished with 12 points.
For La Lumiere Starling finished with 26 points and Okpara added 13 points.