Men's Basketball drops opener at Carroll 78-74

Men's Basketball drops opener at Carroll 78-74

WAUKESHA, Wis.-  Concordia Wisconsin battled back from deficits that reached 15 points in each half, only to fall 78-74 at Carroll University on the road this evening.

The Falcons fell behind 38-23 after Caleb Zeeger's three pointer with just less than five minutes to play in the opening half and still trailed by 13 points (45-32) at intermission.

CUW got within 62-57 on a Brian Jackson (Sr./ Carol Stream, Ill.) layup with just over nine minutes left and junior Steven Brodie's (Oak Park, Cal.) 3-pointer trimmed the Concordia deficit to 73-70 with four minutes remaining before the Falcons went cold.

Steve Zielinski's (Sr./ Brown Deer, Wis.) lean in allowed Shawn Cassidy's troops to get within 77-74 provided one final gasp with :52 remaining but the revamped Falcons did not score again.

Zielinski led Concordia with a 22 point effort that included 9 of 14 shooting while senior Mark Pace (Milwaukee, Wis.) (11), Brodie (11), and sophomore Malcolm Bowers (Germantown, Wis.) (10) also reached double figures.

Carroll also had balanced scoring led by Dan Kratz' 14 point effort.  The Pioneers shot 52% for the game and CUW was also impressive from the field at 54.7%. Concordia won the rebound battle 31-28.

Fourteen turnovers hurt the Falcons (0-1) who will meet Buena Vista tomorrow at 1:00pm in the consolation game of the season-opening tournament.