Metro Lex News

Senior Night Celebration fitting for Valentine’s Day, no love on the court losing 75-85

Happy Senior Night from the Beck Center where our Men's team played their final home game of the regular season against Hanover. Along with the celebrations of Senior Night, today was also Valentine's day, which by state law @3PM February 14th has since been declared "Coach Brian Lane Day", by Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton in honor of his 350th win. With such a declaration it was fitting that Valentine's day is now synonymous with Head Coach Brian Lane. 

Now onto the seniors who have impacted this campus and team in such a positive way throughout their years here:

Our first senior tonight is #13, Will Cockrell from Mount Sterling, KY. Will is escorted by his mother Dawn Cockrell, father Kevin Cockrell, Donna Maze, Caroline Cockrell, and Kamryn Webb. Will is a Political Science major and will be attending Law School at the University of Kentucky this fall. During his time at Transy, he was also involved in the KA Fraternity, Pre-Law Society, and Student Athlete Advisory Council. His favorite memories are the team trip to Las Vegas his Junior year and playing against UK his sophomore year in the "secret COVID scrimmage". For his final thank you, Will would like to say: I thank God for blessing me with the opportunity to play four years with this program, my family for all the support and love they have given me, and all my friends here tonight supporting the team.

Second, we have #44 Luke Schroeder from Sydney, Australia! Luke is escorted by his father Walter Schroeder and mum Katinga Schroeder. Luke is a physics major with plans to go to graduate school for aerospace engineering. His favorite memory with the Pioneers is playing in the NCAA tournament his sophomore year. For his final thank you, he would like to say: thank you to everyone that has been there for me over the years and helped to make Lexington into a second home. Shout out to my parents who came all the way from Australia to support me today.     

In the first half the Pioneers didn't start strong being down double digits within the first 5 minutes. However after coming out of a spirited timeout Transy honed their opportunities and cut the Hanover lead down but a disconnect from deep kept the Pio's in a deficit. Some positives in this half was the ability to get points in areas the Pios have all season, being in the paint. The pioneers also continue to outpace opponents in the fast break offense converting on a high percentage showing how good the boys play when they run. Halftime came with the Pios down 46-58.

After the game Brian Lane had this to say:

"We all agreed at half time that they punked us. We did not respond the way you need to in such a physical game. We did not play nearly as tough and strong as we have to play. Hanover was able to get some threes off some defensive breakdowns and we had trouble scoring in the first half.  In the second half we at least showed some fight cutting the lead to 6 a couple of times.   We need to be tougher.. period"

In the second half the Pioneers came out with more energy looking to score as Hanover and us traded baskets throughout the beginnings of this half. The Pios were able to convert and lock down, scraping their way to get back into this game eventually getting it down to 6. However Hanover was able to break free enough times to get the ball down the court as well as hitting from deep making the comeback out of reach. The pioneer's percentage was fantastic in this half hitting a lot more while also connecting from deep but with Hanover shooting 20FT this game changed the pace Transy wanted to play at and gave them free points. This game ended 75-85.

Original source can be found here.