Eagle Men Rally, Fall Short

The Eagle men could not overcome an extremely slow start in the NCCAA II North Central Regional Tournament semi-final this past Friday night. The Eagles hosted the tournament, and came is as the #3 seed against the second seeded Trinity Bible College Lions. Faith fell by a 89-100 final score and is now 16-10 on the year.

The first nine minutes of the game, the Eagles appeared to be outmatched, as Trinity opened up the game with a 10-0 run, and ran the lead up to 18, 27-9, with 11 minutes to play in the first half. Faith turned the ball over eight times in the first nine minutes. To their credit, the Eagle men did not go away, finally able to find a combination that worked as they slowly pulled themselves back into the game. Over the next eight minutes, the Eagles would put together their own 32-11 lead to come all the way back to take a 41-38 lead with about three minutes to play. Unfortunately, the Eagles couldn't hold the lead, as Trinity would close the half with a 14-6 run to take a 52-47 lead into the break.

The second half consisted of Trinity opening up 7-9 point leads, and the Eagles responding to tie the game up or pull within one or two. Faith was never able to gain the lead in the half, and with four minutes left, Trinity pushed the lead to twelve. Faith would hit back to back threes to pull within six, but would get no closer, as a combination of enough made free throws along with turnovers and missed shots foiled any chance of an Eagle comeback. "Again, I take responsibility for the loss. I need to do a better job of getting our team ready to play in big games. Trinity is a very good team and we didn't have an answer for them defensively, but we need to figure out how to avoid seven to nine minute stretches where we aren't focused. We've experienced that in the past two games now. Hopefully we'll find an answer to it before the ACCA nationals next week," noted coach Fincham.

Faith shot below their season average for the second consecutive game, shooting 43% on the night, while allowing Trinity to shoot 51%, including 58% in the second half. Aaron Leistikow led the Eagles with 23 points, 14 rebounds, four assists, and three steals. Cody Chaffin added 22 points and three steals of his own. Jon Luke Talton scored 19 points, while John Acree came off the bench to scoree 11 points. 

Faith will finish up their season at the ACCA National Tournamet next week. Pairings should become available sometime Sunday evening, and will be posted on the Eagles' website when released.