 | 61 |
 | 59 |
The Concordia University men's basketball team picked up a memorable, all important GPAC road victory, besting the Hastings College Broncos 61-59 on Tuesday evening at Lynn Farrell Arena in Hastings, Neb.
The two teams failed to pull away from each other with Hastings using a three pointer by Derek Fletcher at the first half buzzer to take a one point lead to halftime, 32-31.
Offensive struggles continued for both sides in the second half with neither able to capitalize on mistakes by the other side, resulting in a tie, 57-57, with just over a minute remaining in the second half.
After a timeout the Hastings defense swarmed the Bulldogs' Kendall Bender, forcing an errant pass and an odd man rush. The Broncos took a timeout to set a play. Out of the timeout the Concordia defense forced Waid Vontz to take an errant three-point shot that fell short of the rim. But Jeremiah Slough was en route to the basket, caught the ball in stride and he kept his composure to put up a turnaround jumper for Hastings to give them the lead.
The Bulldogs raced down the court, and Tyler Bredehoeft wasted little time taking the ball hard to the basket, laying it high off the backboard to tie the game, 59-59. Hastings had a chance to hold for the final shot, but with five seconds remaining Vontz lost possession of the ball while attempting to draw a foul. Concordia's Bender threw a lob pass ahead to Sam Huebner who raced to attempt the game winning shot, but Huebner was fouled by Slough with just 1.2 seconds remaining.
Huebner hit both free throws, granting Concordia a 61-59 advantage. A last second, full-length court pass was knocked down, giving the Bulldogs the victory.
Bredehoeft led all scorers with 26 points while Dusan Veselinovic added 18 points and nine rebounds to lead the Bulldogs while Derek Fletcher led the Broncos with 11 points.
The victory moves the Bulldogs to 7-1 overall and 1-0 in the GPAC while the loss drops the Broncos to 3-7 overall and 0-1 in the GPAC. Concordia will take the Thanksgiving holiday weekend off before returning to take on the Doane College Tigers on Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. in Crete, Neb.