The Lincoln Land Loggers men's basketball team stumbled out of the gate against the Mineral Area Community College Cardinals on their way to a 82-53 defeat. 

The Loggers immediately put themselves in a big hole as they dropped to a 29-7 deficit in the first 8 minutes of the game. During that stretch the Loggers shot a dismal 1/17 (5.8%) of which many of the shots were forced. Lincoln Land was pushed out of their offense and struggled to make simple plays. Once the Loggers settled into the game, they began to play even with the Cardinals and got the lead down to 15 and would be getting the ball coming out of the half. 

"Early on we played scared. We did not execute on things we spent all week practicing. We failed to get in our offense and would just do our own thing at times early on." reflected Head Coach Chad Jones about the first half. 

The Loggers were in a position to make the game competitive out of the half, but came out and immediately turned the ball over twice and air-balled a shot and that allowed Mineral Area to go on an 8-0 run in the opening minutes of the second half. The Cardinals pushed their lead out to as many as 28 as again the Loggers settled in a cut back into the lead. For roughly the 10 middle minutes of the second half Lincoln Land was able to cut the lead down into the teens again. Down the stretch Lincoln Land ran out of gas, as they only had 8 eligible players due to injuries, and Mineral Area pushed that lead all the way to the high of 29. 

Jones added, "All in all we were down a few guys so we knew tonight would be tough, but I was really disappointed in the way we made the mistakes we did. We let them out-tough us out of the things we wanted to do and then we would lose our composure and try to force things we didn't need to. Tonight is definitely a learning experience for some guys." 

Lincoln Land had three players get into double digits. Sophomore Jerrid Cosby and freshman Nic Hagel each had the team high of 15. Sophomore D'Aaron Owens chipped in with 12 and a game high 5 assists. Cosby also pulled in a team high 6 boards. 

The Loggers fall to 8-7 on the season. They will host Harry S. Truman College, who the Loggers defeated in their first game of the season, Saturday afternoon at Cass Gymnasium.