Men's Basketball fall to Crown in national semifinal

JOPLIN, Mo. - Great Lakes Christian College men's basketball will continue to go without its first postseason tournament title after a 104-84 upset loss to four-seed Crown College in their NCCAA DII semifinal game on Friday.

Crown jumped out to a big lead right away and never looked back, leading wire-to-wire. They scored the first 11 points of the game and held a resounding 55-26 advantage at halftime after closing the half on a 14-1 run.

Great Lakes could only chip away at the deficit in the second half, never getting closer than 15 even after the result was well in hand as Crown cruised to a spot in the national championship game.

Trent Temple put forward an extraordinary effort, scoring a career-high 32 points on 11/15 shooting (73.3%). The rest of the Great Lakes offense sputtered inconsistently all game long, shooting only 21/56 (37.5%) from the floor. Kylan Shipp scored 20 points, making eight of his 21 attempts (38.1%).

Drew Burnett led Crown with 21 points and Jacob Masek picked up a double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds. Crown controlled the glass, holding a 21-9 rebounding edge at halftime and claiming 42 boards to GLCC's 28 by game's end. Cade Carroll scored 18 first-half points before exiting with an injury. Micah Ladd added 16 points and eight assists.

Great Lakes will play in the tournament's third-place game on Saturday against either Campbellsville Harrodsburg or Manhattan Christian College. Crown will play for an NCCAA DII national championship.