Baltimore, MD - The Messiah men's basketball team was defeated by NCAA Division I opponent, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 98-59 in an exhibition contest on Saturday afternoon. Logan Long led the Falcons in scoring with 11 points, Neil Murren and Colin Sareyka each finished with eight a piece. Josh Darville collected five of Messiah's 22 rebounds and Long contributed four of his own boards. The Falcons shot 22-61 (36.1%) from the field, 11-28 (39.3%) from three-point range, and 4-4 (100%) from the free-throw line. Messiah only had seven turnovers in the game and were able to convert 14 points off of the Retrievers turnovers.

UMBC started off strong in the first half and went on a 14-0 run until Neil Murren knocked down a three-pointer to score Messiah's first basket of the game.  With just under 11 minutes left in the half, BJ McHenry scored a three-pointer off of Darville's pass, and 40 seconds later Rob McWilliams came up with a steal and knocked in a pair of free throws to cut UMBC's lead down to five (16-21). The Retrievers continued to push the tempo and went on a 9-0 run and extended their lead to 14 points. The Falcons struggled to find their rhythm offensively from the field and went 8-29 (27.6%) in the first half. However, Messiah did make six of 14 three-point attempts (42.9%) in the first half and Logan Logan scored nine of his 11 points from behind the arc in the first 20 minutes.
 
In the second half, the Falcons performed much better offensively from the field and they shot 14-32 (43.8%). Sareyk scored all eight of his points in the second half, Luke Cable scored five, and Rob McWilliams contributed four. Although Messiah began to produce more on the offensive end, UMBC did not let up in the second half and converted 11 of 17 (64.71%) three-point attempts and 14-26 (53.85%) from the field.

The Retrievers have a lot of depth offensively and five of their players scored double figures against the Falcons. UMBC also broke a school record by knocking down 19 three-point field goal attempts in Saturday afternoon's game. They shot an impressive 35-60 (58.3%) from the field and from the 19-33 (57.6%) from three-point range. The Falcons were out-rebounded 22-44 and only converted 10 points in the paint, compared to the Retrievers 30.

Coach Van Pelt noted, "This exhibition game was a good experience for our program. I thought that there were segments of the game that we played well, however, UMBC was able to score in bunches and we struggled to control the tempo of the game at times."

Van Pelt continued on his team's performance, "I am proud of our guys, as I felt they competed every possession and did not let the score dictate their effort or attitude."
 
Messiah remains 2-3 on the season, as this game was played as an exhibition. Messiah is back in action on Dec. 7 at Arcadia University, tip-off set for 8:00 p.m.