CORSICANA —  The Jaguars of Jacksonville College overcame a 19-point first half deficit to clip Hill College's Rebels 65-62 on Friday in closing-day play of the Lewis Orr Classic at Navarro College.

The Jaguars improved to 6-1 this year as they head into tonight's Region XIV lid lifter against Navarro college.

That game will tip off at 7 p.m. at the Curtis Carroll Fieldhouse.

“We started out cold and got down 31-12 and it didn't look good at that point,”JC head coach Jody Bailey said. “Fortunately we were able to get some momentum later in the half to cut their lead to 34-32 at halftime.”

Tyrell Springer turned in an impactful performance for the Purple and White. He pumped in 17 points to go along with seven steals and eight deflections.

The Springfield, Mass. freshman dropped in four bombs from downtown in seven tries.

Daniel Skinner logged a double-double (11 points, 10 rebounds), while Mitchell Farr dropped inn 11.

“We were very fortunate to have won this game,” Bailey said. “We got in a hole, but we figured out a way to dig ourselves out. It's important that a team knows how to win close games and I was glad to see us be able to do that (against Hill).”

With the conference opener this evening, Bailey said that he is extremely concerned about two elements of his team's play.

“We are averaging 27 turnovers a game and that is just absolutely ridiculous,” Bailey said. “Another area that we are going to have to improve in fast is our free throw shooting. We are only hitting 55-percent from the line. So. We are continuing to leave too many points on the floor and sooner or later, if we don't fix this, it will come back to get us.”

Bailey said that he would like to see his squad slice the mistakes down to 17 or less per game.

Navarro will bring a 4-3 worksheet into tonight's affair.

Despite the Bulldogs' record, Bailey said that he is expecting a real test from Navarro.

“There is no team in our conference that plays any harder and plays any smarter than Navarro,”Bailey said.”I think this comes from the influence their coach has on the team. There's not a sharper coach in our conference than Johnny Estelle.”