WATERTOWN, WISC. - Trailing by as much as nine points in the second half, No. 13 Trinity International used a 16-1 run down the stretch to survive Tuesday night, escaping with an 84-78 road win over the Maranatha Baptist (Wisc.) Sabercats.
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Nine straight points from Maranatha (7-15) midway through the second half that put the home team in front 67-58, the Sabercats' largest lead of the night. Trinity (25-4) responded with 16 of the next 17 points, with senior
Grant Corsi leading the way, scoring nine points during the run to put the Trojans ahead 74-68 with 5:28 left to play. TIU would hold even with the home team the rest of the way to pick up the six-point win.
"Credit Maranatha for coming out and playing tougher and with better effort than us," said TIU head coach
Boomer Roberts. "We didn't deserve to win the game tonight, but we had a few guys make big plays that allowed us to escape. We had poor focus and little edge, and that has to change or our postseason is going to be very short."
Maranatha jumped out to a 7-1 lead to open the game, and held the lead until
Zach Kirschbaum's layup at the 11:32 mark tied the game at 21-21. Corsi gave Trinity their first lead of the night on the next possession, but the Sabercats would recover and go on to lead 48-45 at the halftime break following a Richard Medina bucket at the buzzer.
The lead would change hands eight times in the opening six and a half minutes of the second half, before Maranatha's nine straight points and the Trojans' comeback.
Kirschbaum finished with a game-high 22 points, on 8-of-12 shooting. Corsi posted 16 points in the win, while
Luke Mead came off the bench to score 11.
The Trojans will hit the road this weekend for the regular season finale at No. 8 Robert Morris, in a matchup that could decide the CCAC regular season title, and has been selected as the NAIA Division II Game of the Week. "We need to find ourselves in the next couple days, and get ready to compete for the CCAC title," said Roberts. Tipoff from Arlington Heights, Ill. is set for 2:00 p.m.
