Frederick, MD – Messiah men's basketball raced out to an early lead on great three-point shooting, but were unable to keep it going throughout the entire game, falling to Hood College by a score of 75-58 on Wednesday night.
 
Logan Long led the Falcons with 19 points, and Josh Clippinger added 15 points and five rebounds. Hood shot the ball very well from beyond the arc, going 11 of 24 (45.8%). After making four of their first six three-point attempts, the Falcons went cold, finishing 8-29 (27.6%) from deep. Hood's bench performed incredibly well, scoring 41 points, over half of the team total. Messiah was also outscored 36-18 in the paint, and outrebounded 37-29.
 
With the loss, Messiah falls to 7-7 on the year and 2-4 in the MAC Commonwealth. Hood improves to 11-4 and 3-3 in the conference.
 
The Falcons got off to a red-hot start as Clippinger was fed in the post for a left-handed baby hook that rolled around the rim and fell in on the first possession, and then back-to-back triples from Luke Cable and Neil Murren gave Messiah an early 8-0 advantage. After five points from Hood, Long responded with a five-point run of his own, sending in a fast-break layup and knocking down a contested three from the left corner to make it 13-5 at the 15:44 mark.
 
A Blazer free throw cut the lead to 13-6, before Clippinger went 1 of 2 from the line and Cable drained a deep three to extend the Falcon lead to 11, 17-6, with 14:29 remaining in the first-half.
 
However, after subbing in a whole new lineup of five fresh players, Hood went on a 14-0 run to take a 20-17 lead with just under 10 minutes left in the half. Clippinger threw down a fierce one-handed jam off a broken press feed from Long to cut the lead to 23-21 at the 7:56 mark, but the Blazers then rattled off a 17-8 run to close out the half.
 
At the break, Hood led 40-29, shooting 14 of 26 (53.8%) from the field and 7 of 14 (50%) from deep, compared to 11 of 29 (37.3%) and 5 of 14 (35.7%) for Messiah. Two Falcons, Clippinger and Long, each tallied 10 points in the half.
 
Messiah came out firing again to start the second-half, as Long and Cable knocked down triples to cut the Blazer lead to 44-35 less than two minutes in. Over the next seven minutes however, Hood went on a 15-7 run, ballooning their lead to the highest of the night at 17, 59-42, at the 11:32 mark.
 
The Falcons would not go down quietly, though, scoring nine unanswered to cut the lead to eight. Clippinger had an easy layup off an offensive rebound by Nate Eberle followed by a jumper from the right elbow from Matt Hess. Rob McWilliams continued the run by getting fouled on a three pointer and sinking all three free throws. A jumper by Long at the 8:14 mark ended the streak, making the score 59-51 in favor of Hood.
 
However, layups from Nate Christian and Ian Eversull quickly pushed the Blazer lead back to 12. The Falcons came as close as seven points when a pair of free throws by BJ McHenry cut the Hood lead to 64-57 with 2:52 remaining, but Hood ended the game on an 11-1 run to take the 75-58 victory.
 
The Falcons look to bounce back on Saturday as they host Albright College for a 5:00 p.m. tip.