Men’s basketball narrowly loses to Northwestern Raiders in close game
Photo description: Freshmen Brooks Kissinger (right) and Lukas Helms (left) rush down the court.
Photo credit: Kayla Korb (photo from previous game)
Maddy Peters
Sports Editor
The Concordia men’s basketball team traveled to Orange City, Iowa for an evening game against the Northwestern College Red Raiders, narrowly losing 78-74.
The Great Plains Athletic Conference season has not gone well for the men’s team with back-to-back losses against Morningside University and now Northwestern. Throughout the game, Concordia kept the score close. The Raiders had the lead for most of the game, but the Bulldogs were always nipping at their heels and keeping Northwestern on their toes.
Concordia took a narrow early lead against Northwestern in the first half that they managed to maintain throughout the first seven minutes. However, the Raiders pulled ahead after that point and started to rack up the points while putting up a solid defense to stop Concordia’s offenses.
The Bulldogs did not give up and fought back to bring the score close and briefly took the lead near the end of the half. It ended with a score of 40-39 in favor of Northwestern.
Concordia was unable to make a triumphant comeback in the second half, as all they could do was maintain the threat of a one-possession game. The Raiders thwarted the Bulldog offense, especially in the three-pointer category as the team only made two of its 10 attempts.
Junior Tristen Smith was the top shooter of the night with a total of 24 points. Fellow juniors Noah Schutte and Bradley Bennett also hit double digits in the game with 20 and 11 points respectively. Schutte and sophomore Jaxon Weyand led the team in assists with four apiece. Schutte had another statistical tie this time with Smith as each player recorded seven rebounds.
The team is now 3-2 overall and 0-2 in the GPAC. The team takes a break from play to account for the Thanksgiving holiday and returns on Nov. 29 to play another GPAC game against Midland University.
