Men’s basketball comes from behind to record HCAC win

DEFIANCE, Ohio – In Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference action on Saturday afternoon, the Defiance College men's basketball team came back from a 20-point deficit to record a hard-fought 78-74 win over the visiting Mount St. Joseph University Lions at the Karl H. Weaner Community Center.

The victory makes Defiance 9-6 overall, including 4-4 in the HCAC while Mount St. Joseph drops to 3-12 and 1-7, respectively.

"In the first half, it was not there," DC head coach Scott Cutter said. "Sometimes you can dig yourself out of a hole but there are a lot of times that if you start out like that, you're not going to win the basketball game. You're going to have games when you're sluggish out of the gate and we dug ourselves a pretty massive hole.

"I give our guys a lot of credit. One thing they didn't do, for a young team that I think says something for our guys, is they didn't panic."  

The Yellow Jackets fell behind, 49-29, before scoring the final five points of the opening half. Defiance stormed back to take its first lead of the day, 62-61, with 9:16 left before the Lions reclaimed a pair of one-point advantages. The hosts' largest lead came at 74-67 with three minutes to go and Sean Tyson (Columbus, Ohio/Centennial) sealed the win by making two free throws with just three seconds remaining.

DC ended at 48.4 percent (31 of 64) from the floor, including 56.3 (9 of 16) from beyond the three-point arc, and 87.5 (7 of 8) at the foul line. The Yellow Jackets had only nine turnovers and were credited with a season-best eight blocked shots.

For the winners, freshman Chase Glock (Stryker, Ohio/Stryker) posted career highs with 18 points, eight rebounds and four blocked shots off the bench while Marell Jordan (Lafayette, Ind./Jefferson) also scored 18. Tyson finished with 14 points while Tyler Andrew (Indianapolis, Ind./Lawrence Central) contributed 10.

"We had a lot of guys step up," Cutter said. "Marell Jordan, I thought, had a tremendous game. He had energy from the get-go and then Chase Glock had a tremendous game. He was protecting the basket the second half and I thought he really had a coming out party today."

Defiance is on the road for an HCAC contest with Earlham College on Wednesday. Tipoff is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. in Richmond, Indiana.