The men’s basketball team recovered from some bad turnovers Wednesday night to tally up another win over Linn-Benton CC, 95-64.

“In the second half we shot the ball better and quit fouling, because about half of their points in the first half came from free throws,” said head coach Rob Nielson.

The Saints were led by guard/forward Scott Zea with 18 points, guard Nick Klinger scoring 15 points and eight steals, guard Gregg Barlow had 14 points and six assists, guard Jamal Cooke put in 14 points and six assists, guard/forward Ryan Johnson had 10 points and eight rebounds, and forward/center Cory Lowe had eight rebounds.

Mt. Hood (5-1, 16-2) is one game behind the leading Chemeketa CC Storm in the Southern Region.

Nielson says one of the reasons why the Saints are doing so well is that the guard’s are really experienced and they have a lot of different ways to go inside. “We can go in big, we can go in big and quick, we can play fast or slow, so we present a lot of match-up problems for other teams,”

In last Saturday’s overtime win against SWOCC, the men’s defense and intensity weren’t very good, according to Nielson.

“Sometimes we get lazy on defense and we rely on our offensive abilities, which are really good, but to win championships we need to play better defense,” said Nielson.

Aside from working on defense, Nielson wants to run the ball more and hopes to score close to 100 points every game.

“To do that you have to go up and down the floor, and sometimes we don’t run as fast as we can, and I know that we have the talent to achieve that,” said Nielson.

The Saints will play Lane CC (1-5, 8-12) at home Saturday night at 6p.m. After a close game in their last meeting, the Saints won’t be taking any chances. “We need to jump on them early because they think that because they almost beat us (at Lane), that they can come and play with us,” said Nielson.