BETHANY, Okla. – The first game of 2018 for the Mid-America Christian University men's basketball team was a tale of two halves. Both MACU and Southwestern Christian University took turns controlling their game, but in the end, it was SCU who found themselves on top.
MACU (9-3, 4-1 SAC) had a 13 point lead with under 10 minutes to play, but SCU (9-4, 4-1 SAC) rallied to take the lead with 36 seconds left, and the Eagles sealed the game at the foul line, as they took the 72-66 win.
MACU scored four of the first five points of the game, but with the Evangels up 5-3, the Eagles went on a 12-0 run to take a 15-5 lead with 12:32 to play in the first half. The lead eventually reached 21-9 with just under 11 minutes to play in the half, but MACU began to whittle away. Javan Perry made a 3-pointer to trim the deficit to seven with 8:14 to go, and Cade Upshaw buried a triple with 7:23 on the clock to cut the margin to 22-17. Andre Horne added a long range bucket with 1:36 to go to trim the gap to 29-27, and with 35 seconds left, Therence Mayimba cashed in a pass from Perry to tie the score at 29, which remained the score at the half.
After SCU opened the second half with a pair of free throws from Victor Diaz, MACU rattled off a 12-1 run to take a 41-32 lead with 13:48 to go. Upshaw made another 3-pointer with 12:07 remaining to push the margin to a dozen, and just over two minutes later, Horne knocked down another 3-pointer to give MACU a 55-42 lead.
From that point, SCU however, took control of the game. The Eagles trimmed the MACU lead to 55-49 with 7:49 to play, and despite MACU pushing the margin back to 61-51 on a 3-pointer from Perry with 5:20 to go, the Evangels were not able to hold off the Eagles. Shawn Scott converted a traditional 3-point play with 4:11 to go to cut the deficit to five, and back-to-back made shots from Diaz cut the Evangels' lead to 66-64 with 2:17 to play. MACU finished the game on a nearly 3-minute scoring drought, and SCU closed the game on a 13-0 run to take the win 72-66.
Upshaw led the Evangels with 13 points in the loss, and Perry added 10 points as well. Mayimba grabbed a team-high six rebounds, and he added a pair of blocked shots as well. MACU made 22-of-55 (40%) shots in the game, including 8-of-27 (29.6%) from long distance. The Evangels struggled at the foul line in the game, making only 14-of-23 (60.9%) foul shots in the game. The Evangels also struggled to rebound the basketball, as SCU won the battle of the boards 41-28.
MACU was scheduled to play St. Gregory's University on Saturday, January 6th, but due to SGU's closure, that game has been awarded by the NAIA as a forfeit win to MACU. The Evangels will be back in action on January 11th, when they head to Goodwell, Oklahoma to take on the Oklahoma Panhandle State University Aggies (8-3, 2-2 SAC) at 8 p.m.
