PARK CITY, Kan. – The second-seeded Mid-America Christian men's basketball team had to overcome a six-point halftime deficit as the Evangels played stifling defense in the second half to come away with a 69-63 victory over No. 3 seed Holy Cross (Ind.) at Hartman Arena on Friday.

TOP PERFORMERS

• Marvin Lowe – 16 PTS, 7-7 FG, 2-3 FT, 2 REB, 2 STL
• Damarius Brooks – 13 PTS, 4-7 FG, 1-3 3FG, 4-5 FT, 3 REB, 2 AST, 2 STL
• Malik Malone – 7 PTS, 2-6 3FG, 8 REB, 1 BLK
• Carlos Slaughter – 2 PTS, 5 BLK

GAME SUMMARY

• 1^st Half
  • After Tony Dorsey gave Mid-America Christian a 7-5 lead after converting a layup after beating his defender down the baseline, Holy Cross countered with a 14-4 run that was capped off on one of Storm Cook's six three-pointers in the first half, giving the Saints their largest lead of the half at 19-11 with 12:59 to go.
  • The Evangels were able to fight back over the next two minutes as a Jasiah Lewis three jumpstarted a string of seven unanswered, followed by scores from Carlos Slaughter and Marvin Lowe to cut the deficit to 19-18 with 11:05 left.
  • After Cook and Caleb Riggs traded three-pointers, Lowe put the Evangels back in-front with a strong move to the bucket, laying it in with 9:25 remaining to bring the score to 23-22.
  • The two teams battled back and forth over the next seven minutes with neither team gathering more than a one-possession lead. Toni Kumanovic gave the Evangels their final lead of the half at 32-31 with a pair of free throws with 2:47 left.
  • The Saints closed out the opening 20 minutes of play with a 7-0 run to take a 38-32 advantage into the halftime break.
• 2^nd Half
  • Holy Cross scored the first bucket of the second half to push its lead to eight before Derrick Magiya made a fantastic fastbreak finger roll layup before Malik Malone splashed a three to pull it to 40-37 with 17:18 left.
  • The Evangels managed to keep it to a one to two possession game over the next six minutes before the Saints scored five in a row to push their edge to 50-43 on Cook's three-point play with 10:22 to go.
  • MACU swung back with a 11-3 run with Caleb Riggs capping the run by burying a jumper coming out of an inbound pass with 6:02 remaining, giving the Evangels the lead back at 54-53.
  • HCC briefly jumped back ahead on a pair of Jordan Gaines free throws, but Damarius Brooks put the Evangels in-front for good on a midrange pull-up jumper in the semicircle with 5:40 on the clock to make it 56-55.
  • On the ensuing offensive possession, Brooks splashed a three from the left wing to extend the MACU lead to 59-55, but another Cook three-point play a minute later managed to cut the Saints deficit back to one at 61-60 with 3:59 left.
  • The Mid-America Christian defense clamped down over the next 2:51 as the Evangels went on a six unanswered run, finished off on a phenomenal three-point play on Brooks' fall-away fastbreak jumper from the left side, giving MACU its largest lead of the contest at 67-60 with 1:38 on the clock.
  • The closest Holy Cross could cut into the MACU advantage was four on a Cook free throw with 30 seconds left, but Jasiah Lewis finished off the Saints with a pair of free throws two seconds later to secure the 69-63 victory.

GAME NOTES

• Mid-America Christian outshot Holy Cross by a 41.0-to-33.9 percent margin, but the Evangels did struggle from range, converting just 7-for-27 (25.9 percent) from behind the arc to 9-of-22 (40.9 percent) for the Saints.
• The big difference in the game came on MACU's second half defense, as the Evangels held HCC to just 25 points on 6-for-25 (24 percent) from the floor and 0-of-7 from behind the arc over the final 20 minutes of play.
• The MACU bench played an intricate role in the comeback victory, outscoring the bench of Holy Cross by a 42-10 margin.
• Marvin Lowe led the way with a season-high 16 points on a perfect 7-for-7 from the field and 2-of-3 from the foul line to go with a pair of rebounds and two steals on the defensive end.
• Damarius Brooks was the only other Evangels player to break into double-figures, with all 13 of his points coming in the second half on 4-of-7 shooting and went 4-for-5 from the foul line to go along with three rebounds, two assists and a pair of steals.
• With the Evangels dominating the rebounding battle at 45-36, Malik Malone led the balanced effort with a game-high eight boards.
• Carlos Slaughter played a major spark in the MACU defense, as his five blocks moved into a five-way tie for the second-most in a single game in the NAIA era. The last Evangels player to block five or more shots in a game was Chris Runnels against John Brown (Ark.) on Jan. 7, 2016.
• Mid-America Christian won its fourth straight opening round game at the NAIA Tournament after competing in the national tourney four times in the last seven years (selected to the field five times, 2020 championships were canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic).

NEXT UP

• Mid-America Christian will face a tough test in the second round as the Evangels will take on the second-rated overall No. 1 seed in William Penn on Saturday. Tip-off is slated for 11 a.m. inside Hartman Arena in Park City, Kan.