SEATTLE -- Despite a pressing comeback midway through the second half, the Concordia-Chicago men's basketball team ultimately fell 89-83 to the University of Puget Sound Loggers this evening.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE:
- In his 67th consecutive start, senior Mitch Pelissier scored the game-high 27 points during his homecoming game.
- Freshman Landen Gladney tallied 15 boards and 10 points to reach his eighth career double-double.
- Jamal Turner had 14 points in tonight's game, marking his third consecutive double-digit scoring performance. He also had the game-high in steals (4) and team-high in assists (3).
- Sawyer Concklin and Evan Snyder combined for four of Concordia-Chicago's six made three-pointers, three of which came during the second half.
- As a team, CUC converted 22 points off of turnovers.
The Cougars came out ready to battle as Gladney won the opening tip off to Turner. From there, Turner dished that same ball to Pelissier who drained the isolated three-pointer and gave the Cougars a 3-0 lead just six seconds in.
Despite Logger responses, CUC maintained a five-point lead through the first three minutes of the game, until Puget Sound began to drive inside. As UPS began to pull away with a seven-point lead, Turner and Concklin made back-to-back shots from beyond the arc to put the game back within reach for the Cougars, at 21-17 with 13 to go in the half.
With nine minutes left, Concordia-Chicago tied things up at 25 apiece thanks to a Gladney layup. However, that would be the closest CUC would get to the Loggers in the half, as the home team managed to pull away with a 42-36 lead heading into the break, on 48.6 percent shooting from the field.
Puget Sound gained a lead as large as 14 in the opening minutes of the second half.
Continuing to work, the Cougars had chipped away to just an eight-point deficit from a Pelissier layup at the 8:47 mark. From there, CUC banked nine unanswered points to make it a 64-63 game while working with just five minutes left to make a complete comeback.
Gladney went on to drain two straight from the charity stripe and kept things at bay for the Cougars with a 73-70 Logger lead. But once again, amidst a CUC turnaround, UPS silenced the Cougars with two straight three-pointers less than 30 seconds apart, to ultimately pull away with the win.
Concordia-Chicago would fight tooth-and-nail until the end, but only pulled as close as four points to the Loggers over the final two minutes of play as CUC fell 89-83.
With a quick turnaround, the Cougars travel to Spokane, Wash. tomorrow morning as they prepare to take on No. 9 Whitworth University on Wednesday night. Live stats and video will be available for Wednesday night's 7 p.m. (PST) game.
