KENOSHA, Wis. – The Carthage College men's basketball team suffered their first loss of the season Tuesday night at Tarble Arena, falling to a determined University of Wisconsin-River Falls team that battled back from multiple double-digit second half deficits to deafeat the Red Men, 81-75.
"Anytime you have a 14-point lead at home you are expected to win the basketball," stated head men's basketball coach
Bosko Djurickovic following the loss. "We didn't execute as well down the stretch, giving them 51 points in the second half after holding them to 30 in the first. Some of that is probably an experience factor. Some of that may be an exhaustion factor. You can always look back at games and talk about adjustments that could have been made. But disappointed to say the least. We feel we are much better than we have been the past couple years. But we lost to a very good team tonight that has now won three tough road games. The game was there to be had tonight and we let them off the hook."
The loss drops the Red Men to 2-1 on the season, while the third road win of the year for the Falcons improves them to 3-1.
Starters
Kevin Kozil,
Brad Kruse,
Brad Perry and
Mike Stevenson each scored in double figures for the Red Men in the loss with Kozil leading the way with 15 points.
Field goal shooting on the night was close to even with the Red Men holding a slight 50-49.2 edge from the field. However the Red Men struggled from deep, going just 7-of-21 from three-point territory, while the Falcons shot 47.3-percent, going 10-of-23.
Hot shooting from both teams opened the game as a Carthage timeout with 9:05 remaining in the first half saw both teams well about 50-percent and Carthage holding a one-point lead at 23-22. A pair of threes from
Kienan Baltimore and
Brad Kruse gave Carthage their largest lead of the game at 29-22 with 7:12 left in the half. After the Falcons once again cut the lead to three at 29-26, the Red Men went on 10-3 run over the final 5:33 that sparked the home team to take their largest lead of the evening, 39-30, into the locker room at the half.
Carthage finished the half shooting 55.6-percent on 15-27 shooting from the field to earn the nine-point halftime advantage, besting River Falls' 36.7-percent from the field.
It looked as though Carthage was going to pull away early in the second half following a three from Kozil put the Red Men up 14 points 1:23 into the half. The Falcons answered that with an 8-0 run to cut the deficit to six at 44-38. The Red Men once again reestablished their 14-point lead with an 8-0 run if their own, fueled by a pair of threes by Kruse, to give Carthage a 52-38 lead with 15:59 remaining.
River Falls would once again have the answer however and use a 17-3 run that lasted 4:27 to comeback and tie the game at 55-55 with 11:32 remaining.
"To their ultimate credit, every time we extended the lead to 14, they made a three," said Djurickovic on the Falcons comebacks. "One of their guys made his only three of the season so far. Next time down they get another to continue cutting in. On our end offensively, we didn't execute as well offensively. While the numbers may say we did, we didn't get as good of shots down the stretch as they did in the closing minutes."
After multiple exchanges of buckets later in the half, the Falcons took a lead with 3:56 left in regulation, which they would never relinquish, eventually pushing the lead to as many as eight in the final minute to deliver the defeat to the Red Men.
Alex Herink had a game-high 18 points for UW-RF. After tallying 14 in the first half, the Red Men were able to contain Herink a bit more and limited him to just the four second half points.
Following the Thanksgiving holiday break, the Red Men will return to Tarble for their fourth-straight home game to open the season, as the Red Men face Northland College, Saturday, November 26th at 4:00 p.m.
