This one was all it was hyped up to be.
After leading for the first 14 minutes, the Eagles fell behind the Trinity Bloomington Crusaders and never led again. No. 19 Bloomington knocked off No. 13 Our Savior's, 81-78, on Friday night.
It was clear that this game was going to be a track meet from the get-go. Our Savior's quickly jumped out to a 10-2 advantage and never surrendered the lead the rest of the period. The Eagles made it a point of emphasis to get the halfcourt offense flowing through Conor McCaffrey, who notched 8 points and 4 rebounds in the first half. It was a fairly balanced offensive attack with six guys recording at least two points heading into the break.
Defensively, the Eagles did a solid job holding Bloomington’ stars Ethan Blankenship. and David Null in check in the first frame. The pair combined for just 8 first-half points. It was the other backcourt duo, Tyrus Thomas and Drew Dicken, that did the majority of the damage for the Crusaders, each scoring at least 10 points in the first period. The Eagles led 31-27 heading into the half.
Trinity Bloomington took its first lead of the game, 39-37, off a deep three from Blankenship. (22 second-half points) with just under 11 minutes to go and never looked back. There wasn’t much offensive rhythm for either team to start the second half — the Eagles scored 12 points in the opening 5 minutes of the second stanza — but that didn’t last long.
Then came a couple of momentum-shifting foul calls that all but put Our Savior's away. A suspect Flagrant 1 whistle against Conor McCaffrey resulted in a 6-point swing in Bloomingtons’ favor. Lucas Schmidt, one of the only Eagles to get anything going in the halfcourt, was sidelined with his fifth foul with over five minutes to play. Our Savior's fell behind by as much as 10, but never cut it to a one-possession ballgame as Bloomington escaped with a 81-78 victory.