ST. PETER, Minn. – The Gustavus men’s basketball team had its lead dwindle in the back end of the second half, eventually falling 68-67 in a tight battle against Carleton College Wednesday evening at Gus Young Court.
The Gusties, now 6-5 overall and 4-2 in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, have lost three-straight, while the Knights improve to 7-3 overall and remain unbeaten at 5-0 in the MIAC.
Gustavus shot well in the first half, going 14-for-27 from the field, including a 7-11 clip from beyond the arc as the Gusties jumped out to their largest lead of the game just over seven minutes in with a Schuyler Thompson (Sr., Milville, Minn.) three-pointer, giving the home team a 15-7 lead.
Kelsey Thomas (Sr., Wiesdbaden, Germany) had the hot hand in the first 20 minutes, shooting 5-6 from the field and 2-2 from beyond the arc to lead the Gusties with 13 points as they held a 40-36 lead into the intermission.
Carleton gained its first lead of the game just past the midway point of the second half with two free throws from Matthew Stritzel, as the Knights led 56-54. From then on the game saw a couple lead changes and no more than a three point lead for the visitors. In the end, Gustavus was unable to convert on clutch opportunities from the charity stripe and missed on a last second chance in the one-point setback.
“We had some turnovers that really hurt us, because we weren’t scoring well, but we were there and scoring enough,” said Head Coach Mark Hanson. “You need to get a shot every possession and we had a couple of moving screens that took some life out of us. We didn’t stay in front of them enough and defensively I would say we didn’t really get done what the game plan was. Offensively, it wasn’t the number of turnovers but the time of them that hurt us.”
Gustavus shot a season-high 50 percent three-point field goal percentage, going 9-18, while shooting 44 percent (22-50) from the field. Thomas led the Black and Gold with 21 points, while Riley Sharbono (Jr., Marshall, Minn.) followed with 18 points.
“That was a very good team that we played, and I’m sure it was an enjoyable game for people to watch,” Hanson commented. “It was a competitive game and there were some good things and also some things to fix.”
The Gusties remain at home and return to action on Saturday at Gus Young Court, hosting Concordia College at 1 p.m.