Men’s basketball comes up short again in comeback bid at Bluffton

BLUFFTON, Ohio – Playing the rival Bluffton University Beavers for the second time in less than 24 hours on Saturday afternoon, but this time inside the Sommer Center, the Defiance College men's basketball team's comeback bid again fell short in a 69-60 loss.

"I was proud of our effort and I thought we guarded well enough to win," Defiance head coach Scott Cutter said. "We just needed to be better finishig off plays at the basket and taking care of the ball as 15 turnovers is too many."

After a couple of early ties, the Yellow Jackets went on a 9-0 run to lead, 17-8. DC led, 20-11, before Bluffton finished the half with a 17-7 spurt for a 28-27 advantage at the intermission. The Beavers increased their lead to 12 points in the second half but Defiance fought back to twice cut its deficit to four, the last time at 57-53 with 5:31 remaining, but could get no closer.

"We saw progress from Friday and that is encouraging. But we hold ourselves accountable to being on the right side of the scoreboard and we weren't, so we have plenty of work to do this week to make that happen," Cutter said.

The Yellow Jackets shot 45.3 percent (24 of 53) from the floor while BU finished at 48.1 percent (26 of 54). The hosts connected on six three-pointers to only three for DC. After getting outrebounded by a 43-25 margin last night, Defiance responded by edging BU on the boards, 31-30, on Saturday.

For the Yellow Jackets, Marell Jordan made 6-of-9 field goals in collecting 15 points while freshman Dan Luers also scored 15 to go along with a game-high eight rebounds. Chase Glock had nine points and seven boards.

DC is 0-2 overall on the young season while Bluffton moves to 5-0. Defiance is scheduled to host Franklin College next Friday with tipoff set for 8 p.m. at the Karl H. Weaner Community Center.