The Loggers men's basketball team finished the first semester with a 58-48 loss at the hands of the St. Louis Community College Archers. 


Lincoln Land suffered the same fate they have in their last few games, hot starts, but cold finishes. Tonight the Loggers did not race out to as big of a lead as they have in recent losses, but they did fall victim to long scoring droughts in the second half. Lincoln Land found themselves down at half for the first time in five games as they trailed STLCC 28-25 and led only for a few short possessions in the second half. 

Lincoln Land did give up size all night as the Archers started two players who stood at 6'9". The Loggers did a fairly solid job in the first half of neutralizing that size, but as the game wore on, St. Louis used that size to their advantage by bringing in 11 offensive rebounds and getting 15 second chance points. The Archers out-rebounded the Loggers 33-24 in the game. 

Another stat that doomed the Loggers was turnovers. Lincoln Land committed only 1 more turnover than St. Louis, but they were out scored 13-5 off those turnovers. In the first half, Lincoln Land rode some hot shooting as they converted on 7 of their first 17 threes. In the second half, Lincoln Land made only 4 of their 20 attempts. 

With all that being said, with 6:00 to go the Loggers were in a position to still win as they found themselves down only 6, 50-44. However, some of their 15 turnovers unfortunately came up during this crucial stretch. Some late forced opportunities went wide and STLCC's lead bubbled out to 14, before ending at 10. 

Head Coach Chad Jones commented following the game, "Our effort has been so disappointing. At times late in games we seem disinterested in what we are doing and we as coaches will work to fix that. The frustrating thing for us is that we are right there in all these games, just have to put in the work to turn these into victories. We are a few plays away from turning four losses into four victories. That is what we need to build on." 

The Loggers got a career high from freshman Nic Hagel who had 17. Sophomore Trace Gentry was the only other Logger in double digits with 14. 

Lincoln Land is now 7-6. They have a long holiday break and will return to action January 11.