Saints Fight Hard, Fall Hard

The Saints honored four of their players before the game against Ozark on Saturday.  CCCB will be graduating senior Jerrell Harvey, preaching major from Cleveland, Ohio in May.  Seniors Israel Ramsey of Kansas City, Missouri and Kris Holford of Topeka, Kansas will be around in the fall for a few more classes, but have used up their four years of eligibility.  Ramsey is a Christian Education major and Holford is a Youth Ministry major.  Junior Terry Jones will be back for another year to finish up his degree, but has used his final year of eligibility as well.  The four players were each presented with their jerseys from last year and a mini basketball signed by their team. 

The game against the Ambassadors tipped off shortly after the presentations, and got off to a rocky start.  Terry Jones, returning for the first time since his foot injury on January 9th, had a rough time getting started, netting only 7 points the entire game and re-injurying himself on a move to the basket early in the first half.  Plagued with foul trouble, the team continued to push forward in spurts.  Kris "The Horse" Holford put up 21 points, shooting 8-13 and netting 5 of 5 free throws, and contributed 14 of the teams 28 rebounds.  Jerrell Harvey put up and impressive 28 points, shooting 11-14 from the field.  Point guard, Hayden Hagerman, scored nil in the first half, but came back to score 8 from the field in the second, plus and additional 12 of 12 free throws.  The Saints shot 32 times from the free throw line, netting 24, while the Ambassadors shot 19 of 28 from the line.  The whistles were aplenty - both teams were in the double bonus quickly, in both halves.  

The Ambassadors were led by Marko Mircetic, of Belgrade, Serbia, who had 38 points.  Ozark hit 7 of 12 from behind the arc, and used the long 3 to ruin the hopes of the Saints who inched closer and closer.  Central came within 8 at one point, but couldn't pull out a win.  The score at the half was 44-33 in favor of OCC, who went on to win the game by a score of 94-83. Both teams scored 50 points in the second half.

The next home game for the Saints is Monday night at 7:00 pm.  The men face NCCAA opponent Baptist Bible College of Springfield, Missouri. Their record is presently 6-16, overall and 5-5 in the MCCC.  They need to maintain a .500 conference record in order to move on to Regionals at the end of February.  They have 8 more games before that time.