Rangers upend Temple, 98-86

The Temple College Leopards were determined to not allow freshman sensation Keisei Tominaga to beat them Wednesday night in front of their own fans. So, the Rangers turned to the "next man up" approach. And it worked perfectly.

Kenton Eskridge poured in a season-high 28 points and helped spur the top-ranked Ranger College men's basketball team to a 98-86 victory. Eskridge was near perfect from the floor in the win, hitting on all but three of his scoring opportunities.

"He did a great job for us," said Ranger head coach Billy Gillispie. "Maybe that will get him going as we head down the final stretch in conference."

with Temple focusing its efforts on holding Tominaga down, Eskridge went 9-for-12 from the field and hit all eight of his free throw opportunities.

Ranger rallied from an early deficit to take a slim 53-47 lead at the end of the first 20 minutes of action. They closed out the game with a 45-39 run in the second.

Sophomore Brayan Au also came up big offensively for the Rangers. He hit on 12 of his 18 attempts and finished with 26 points.

Montre Gipson and Shakur Daniel also reached double figures for the Rangers in the win. Gipson pushed in 14 points and led the team with 10 rebounds. Daniel added 10 points.

With the victory, the Rangers improved to 6-0 in conference play, and to 21-1 overall. Temple fell to 17-3 for the year and 2-3 in the conference.

Ranger, in the midst of a five-game road swing, will travel to Denison on Jan. 29 to face Grayson College.