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03.01.08
- In semifinal action
of the MCC Tournament, third-seeded HU went down in defeat 81-64 to
second-seeded Grace College. Although the Foresters were knocked
from the conference tournament, they still have an outside chance of
earning an at-large bid to the national tournament based on their
27th-place ranking in the final NAIA poll. The 32 participants
will be announced next week.
HU got an early 9-4 jump on Grace, but
the NAIA 19th-ranked Lancers quickly recovered and knotted the score at 11 at
the 13:26 mark. David Swanson's jumper with 11:23 left in the
half gave the Lancers the lead for good at 16-14. The Foresters
were still within five at 30-25 with just under four minutes to play,
but Grace closed out the half with a 9-4 run to take a 39-29 advantage
to the break.
HU cut it to seven
twice in the first five minutes of the second half, but an 8-0 Lancer
run ended the rally and gave Grace a commanding 55-40 lead. HU
would trim it to 11 at 57-46 midway through the period, but another
14-3 Grace spurt was enough to put the game out of reach for the
Foresters.
Swanson took top
scoring honors with 19 points off the bench for the Lancers.
David Henry added 14 points and Eric Gaff finished with 11 points and
a game-high 10 rebounds. HU, who shot just 36% from the field
for the game, was led by three players with 11 points, Tyler Shively,
Kevin Kyle and Kyle Benge.
Box Score |
