ANGOLA, Ind. – The Adrian College men's basketball team traveled to No. 1 seed Trine University for their MIAA semi-final contest on Friday night. The Bulldogs would give the Thunder everything they had, but would fall short, 74-70.
On the first possession of the game
Josh Jordan would grab an offensive rebound and put it back up and in to give the Bulldogs the lead, 2-0. Trine would answer as they would lead 12-7 at the 13-minute mark. Another basket by Jordan would give Adrian a three-point lead with just under nine minutes to play in the first half. Trine would see their largest lead of the first half grow to seven points with about three minutes left. Adrian would battle back to get it to within one, but the Thunder would knock down two free throws to end the half and give them a 37-34 lead at the break. The Bulldogs would shoot 40% from the floor and go 4-13 from beyond the arc.
Kendall Chrismon would lead Adrian with 14 points through the first twenty minutes of action.
Adrian would come out and nail a three-pointer out of the halftime break by
Josh Rechsteiner to tie the game up at 37. A back and forth first five minutes was displayed as it stayed knotted up at 44. Trine would go on another run to have a six-point edge on the Bulldogs with just under 11 minutes to play. The Bulldogs would answer with a 10-4 run capped off with a
Michael Rightnowar three-pointer to tie the game back up. The Bulldogs would struggle defensively and find themselves back down eight with under two minutes to play. Adrian stayed within themselves as
Nick Seifert and
DJ Morrow would both knock down a three-pointer to bring the Bulldogs to within two. With about 30 seconds left, Adrian dug in and got a much-needed stop. The Bulldogs would get a shot in transition, but it would not fall as the Thunder would grind out a win against Adrian, 74-70. The Bulldogs would shoot 42.4% from the floor throughout the game and go 10-27 from three.
Chrismon would lead the Bulldogs in scoring with 21 as Rightnowar would add 14 points of his own. Seifert would pull down eight rebounds as Chrismon would total seven. Rightnowar led with three assists on the night with Rechsteiner totaling three steals.
The Bulldogs would end the season with an 8-19 overall record as they would go toe-to-toe with Trine University in the MIAA semi-final game as they would finish top-four in the conference.
