Disastrous First Half Costs Trojans at Spring Arbor
SPRING ARBOR, Mich. – A 19-point first half and lack of interior scoring throughout the night doomed Taylor in a 67-66 loss at Spring Arbor (7-20, 1-14 CL) on Tuesday.
Taylor never held the lead on the court of the last-place Cougars, falling to 2-11 away from Odle Arena this season after trailing by as many as 40-19 in the contest.
SAU scored the first eight points and led 38-19 at the break after Taylor shot just 26.9 percent in the opening 20 minutes.
TU came to life in the second half, netting 47 points after the break but came up just shy of erasing a 21-point deficit.
A triple from Jakeb Kinsey brought the lead under 10 for the first time in the second half with 9:06 to play, and a trey from Gavin Yoon two minutes later cut the gap to six. Back-to-back threes from Aaron Hahn and Yoon trimmed it to 61-58 with just over four to play and another Yoon hoop with 1:45 left made it a one-point game.
Neither side moved the 65-64 score until a pair of free throws from the hosts pushed the spread to three with nine seconds left and time ran out on Taylor in the 67-66 defeat.
Taylor shot 12-of-26 from beyond the arc for one of its finest efforts from deep this season but mustered only nine makes in 28 tries from two-point range and was outscored by a 32-14 difference in the paint.
Yoon and Hubbard each scored 16 to lead the Trojans, while Fuhrmann added 14 and Hahn ended with 13. Hubbard also grabbed 10 rebounds for his 11th double-double of the year.
Taylor (9-17, 5-10 CL) will host No. 14 Grace (19-7, 8-6 CL) on Saturday at 3:00 pm, following a Senior Day ceremony for the Trojans.