Eagles Win Conference Sportsmanship Award at Conference Tournament

By Loretta Gamboe, Staff Writer

BELTON, Missouri—Though they lost both rounds of the Midwest Christian College Conference (MCCC) Tournament, the Faith Eagles men's basketball team won the Richard E. Spencer Sportsmanship Award for their good character as a team on the court this season. 

Round One: Calvary University

The Eagles got off to a rough start Thursday afternoon against the Calvary University Warriors.  The Eagles scored just two points in the first five minutes of the game, resulting in a 15-2 deficit. With ten minutes left in the first half, the Eagles were down 17-7. They could not cut Calvary's lead back to single digits for the rest of the half and went into halftime down 32-18. 

In the second half, the Warriors slowly stretched their lead out, gaining their biggest advantage of the game, 58-36, with just under seven minutes left to play.  The Eagles went on a 13-0 run with baskets from Brett Larson, Christian Brown, and Kalab Sidlinger, cutting the Warriors' lead to single digits with four minutes left in the game.  Unfortunately, the Eagles did not score again, and the Warriors went on a run of their own to win the game 66-49. 

Kalab Sidlinger led the Eagles in scoring with a game-high 16 points, his thirteenth double-digit game this season.  Tanner Van Beek also scored in double digits with 10 points and 6 rebounds. 

Round Two: Emmaus Bible College

A rough first half resulted in the Eagles' second loss of the tournament.  In the first seven minutes of the game, Emmaus pulled ahead 23-14.  Faith trimmed this lead to six points at 30-24 with ten minutes left in the half only for Emmaus to increase it back up to ten at 38-28 with six minutes left in the half.  By halftime, Faith was down 45-32. 

Faith continued to hustle and put up a good fight despite being behind in the second half.  They even outscored Emmaus 35-31 in the second half, but unfortunately this was not enough to overcome the deficit created in the first half.  Emmaus gained their largest lead of the game 65-48 with ten minutes left.  Faith closed the game with a 10-0 run, but it wasn't enough to regain the lead, resulting in a 76-67 loss for Faith. 

Everyone on the men's team scored in Friday's game, led by Kalab Sidlinger for the second game in a row with fifteen points.  Chase Clark contributed his eighth double-double of the season with 12 points and 12 rebounds.  Jason Conable had 8 points, while Cole Glanzer had 7 points and 6 assists.  Tanner Van Beek, Daniel Guess and Micah Stinson contributed 6 points each.

The Eagles will conclude their season on Monday, February 18, at Kansas Christian College.