Pride drop defensive battle 74-65 against Pioneers

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Closing out the 2023 portion of their 2023-24 slate, the Clarke University men's basketball team couldn't break through into the win column in a 74-65 loss to MidAmerica Nazarene University on Saturday afternoon.

For most of the first half, the Pride and Pioneers kept the score within a one-possession game with MNU's largest lead coming multiple times but latest near the 10-minute mark at 24-19 then CU would rally back to take a 28-24 lead but then struggle to finish the half where MNU would finish leading by eight at 40-32 to close the half at a 16-4 run.

The second half was similar in the fact that Clarke continued to hang around, never allowing the Pioneers to grab a lead larger than 10 points over the first 10 minutes of the half but on the opposite side, the Pride were never able to pull within any closer than four points.

MidAmerica Nazarene grabbed their first double digit lead of the game around eight minutes remaining in the game at 60-48 as the closest the game would get for the remainder of the half would be six points throughout multiple points of that stretch but never beyond that margin with MNU closing out the nine-point victory.

Both teams scored below their season scoring average and shot under 36 percent from the field as the Pride outshot the Pioneers by percentage, finishing at 35.6 percent compared to MNU's 34.4 percent but the difference came from behind the three point line as MidAmerica Nazarene hit 11 of the 37 attempts from deep with Clarke just hitting six of their 23 attempts.

The game's leading scorer came from CU as Anthony Eddy finished with 20 points on 6-of-14 (42.9%) shooting as he added two rebound and a steal with no other member of the Pride finishing above nine points in the game as Chris Burnell and Jake Layman added those nine-point performances, both adding seven rebounds apiece.

For MNU, four players finished in double figures led by Ed Wright's 17 points on a tough day from the field at 3-for-12 (25%) but a perfect 9-for-9 from the free throw line as Jake Alexander added 14 off the bench, Gerard Bosch had a 13-point, 12-rebound double-double, and Anthony Brown had 10 points and eight rebounds.

Clarke men's basketball will now head into their winter break away from official competition, participating in a pair of exhibitions before getting back to Heart play at the start of January when they start on the road against Grand View University on Jan. 3 for a 7:30 p.m. CT tip in Des Moines, Iowa.