The MACU men's basketball team had a tough start to the Battle at the Beach as the Evangels fell to the 2022 NAIA National Champion Loyola (La.) 81-54 inside Billy Harrison Fieldhouse on Monday night.
TOP PERFORMERS
- Seth Hurd – 11 Points, 5-9 FG, 6 Reb
- DaRaun Clark – 11 Points, 5-13 FG, 4 Reb
- Tarrence Gaines – 7 Points, 3-6 FG, 7 Reb
- First Half
- After Loyola's Jalen Galloway scored five of the first seven points to open the game, Mid-America Christian (2-3) put together a strong 9-2 run ignited by a Jaylon Barnett three-point play followed by buckets from DaRaun Clark and Travonte Doolittle before Seth Hurd capped it with a layup in the paint to give MACU its largest lead of the game at 11-7 with 16:11 left.
- After Gaines tipped in a Quentin Woodson miss at the 15:04 mark to make it 13-10, the Evangels went cold as the Wolfpack went on a 15-0 run over the next three minutes as Milan Mejia's three-ball from the top of the key made it a 25-13 LU advantage with 12:02 to go.
- MACU managed to keep the Wolfpack off the scoreboard for a 3:14 stretch, but the Evangels also struggled on the offensive end in trying to chip the Loyola (6-0) lead down as a Clark jumper and a Barnett layup briefly trimmed the deficit to single-digits with just under 10 minutes remaining.
- Mid-America Christian hit another cold stretch, going 5:11 without a score as Loyola stretched the lead out to 33-17 before Clark buried a right baseline jumper and drew the foul off Barnett's inbound pass at the 4:30 mark to end the drought.
- The Wolfpack countered with a five unanswered run and didn't let the lead shrink down to below 13 points the rest of the way as Loyola took a 43-25 advantage into the halftime break.
- Second Half
- Loyola's Michael Harden buried a pair of foul shots and Clark knocked down long two-pointer from the left corner with his toe on the line to open the second half, but Loyola quickly strung together six straight to stretch the edge to 51-24 with 16:28 to go.
- Mid-America Christian briefly brought it back to below 20 on Conner Calavan's running midrange jumper from the left side, but LU pulled away once again by scoring 11 of the next 14 points to build the lead out to 62-35 midway through the half.
- After Hurd made one of two free throws to close it to 62-38 with 9:13 left, the Wolfpack scored seven straight, capped off on an Andrew Stagni three-pointer at the 7:31 mark to give Loyola its largest lead of the contest at 69-38.
- MACU was unable to close the LU lead below 26 the rest of the way as Loyola went on to win by an 81-54 final.
- Mid-America Christian's shooting woes continued as the Evangels could only muster 21-of-62 (33.9 percent) from the field and particularly struggled from beyond the arc, knocking down just 4-for-25 (16.0 percent) while Loyola shot 28-for-65 (43.1 percent), including an efficient 14-for-32 (43.8 percent) from three-point range.
- The Wolfpack's defense also forced the Evangels into committing 21 turnovers while Loyola finished with just 11 giveaways.
- One positive MACU was able to take away from the contest was being able to outrebound Loyola, as the Evangels finished with a 46-38 edge on the glass, including a 15-9 margin on the offensive end.
- Seth Hurd and DaRaun Clark were the only MACU players that were able to crack into double-figures with 11 points apiece. Hurd went 5-for-9 from the floor to go with six rebounds while Clark shot 5-for-13 while efficiently converting on 5-of-7 shots from inside the three-point arc.
- Tarrence Gaines led MACU on the glass with seven rebounds to go with seven points on 3-of-6 shooting while Jaylon Barnett led the distribution efforts with three assists along with six points.
- The Evangels have struggled to get into the win column during the month of November as MACU has now lost three straight regular season games while Loyola has opened the season on a six-game win streak.
Original source can be found here
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