Crown College Men’s Basketball Earns Split on Conference Road Trip
Saint Bonifacius, Minn – Returning to the hardwood after a 19 day break for the holidays, the first place Crown College Storm men’s basketball team looked to keep it’s unbeaten conference record intact as it traveled to Mankato, Minnesota on Friday night January 8th , to take on Bethany Lutheran College. The Vikings entered the game looking for their first victory of the season after dropping their first 12 games. The Storm looked to break a four game losing streak - all against non-conference opponents.
The Vikings jumped out to an early 11-0 lead on the Storm in the games’ first two and a half minutes of action but Crown battled back and cut the Vikings lead to 12-10 with a 10-1 run of their own. Not to be out done, the Vikings responded with a 19-4 run to pull ahead by 17, taking a commanding 31-14 lead mid-way through the first half. The Storm finished the half outscoring the Vikings 26-15 to cut the lead to 6 points at the half trailing 46-40.
The second half saw the Storm cut the lead to 4 five times, but they were never able to pull any closer as the Storm handed the Vikings a 93-78 victory, their first of the season.
The Storm was led by senior guard Mike Landers (Milwaukee, Wis.) who finished with a game high 26 points on 9 of 14 shooting including 7 of 9 from the free throw line. Four other Storm players joined Landers in double figures with fellow senior guard Jake Jarvis (Kalispell, Mont.) chipping in 14 points followed by 13 points from freshman point guard Taylor Jones (Chisago Lakes, Minn.) and sophomore guard Steven Holladay with 11 (Belle Plaine, Minn.) points making all 3 of his attempts from beyond the arc.
With the loss, the Storm drop to 2-11 overall and 2-1 in the UMAC. On Saturday the team traveled to New Ulm, Minnesota to take on the Knights of Martin Luther College, looking to rebound from the disappointing performance on Friday night.
Crown learned its lesson from the night before and started much faster on Saturday night taking an early 6 point lead before the Knights would tie the score at 16-16 with just over 13 minutes to go in the first half. The Storm went on a 9-2 run to take a 25-18 lead. The Knights rallied to tie the score at 28 - the third tie of the game - and took their first lead of the game extending it to as much as 4 points before the Storm scored the half’s final 4 points to end the first 20 minutes of action in a 36-36 tie.
The teams remained close for much of the second half with no lead getting higher than 5 points until just less than 3 minutes remained in the game. Leading 72-67, the Storm would go on a 9-3 run to extend their lead to 11 points at 81-70 with just over 2 minutes to go in the game on a blocked shot by freshman forward Andrew Harrel (Kalispell, Mont.). They put the game away from the free throw line making 5 of 6 free throws to secure the conference road victory 86-75, to improve to 3-1 in the conference (3-11 overall) and remain tied for first place in the UMAC. The conference road victory was the first road win in conference play since the 2007-2008 season and was the first victory over Martin Luther since January of 2005.
The Storm continued to get outstanding play from senior guard Mike Landers who finished Saturday with a game high 25 points. Jake Jarvis would also score 20 points, shooting 7-10 from the field including 3-4 from beyond the arc. Junior forward Maurice Lloyd would recover from a disappointing performance on Friday night by dominating the paint for the Storm, scoring 18 points and grabbing 8 rebounds.
The Storm are next in action on Saturday January 16th, when they play host to Northwestern College in a battle of two teams tied for first place in the UMAC standings, game time is scheduled for 5:00 p.m.
