The SU men's basketball team fell to 3-2 in Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference play on Saturday (Jan. 13) as the Trinity University Tigers downed the Pirates by a 62-53 score in San Antonio, TX.
The Pirates held their only leads of the game during the early-going as the score went back and forth. Southwestern's last lead came with 12:18 to go in the half thanks to a Micah Salinas (San Antonio, TX/Highlands HS) layup that made the score 9-8. Junior Matt Caplan (Houston, TX/University of Kansas) tied the game at 16-16 with a three-pointer at the 8:13 mark. Trinity then answered with seven-straight points and took a 31-22 lead in to the half.
TU extended its lead to 13 in the first four minutes of the second half before the Pirates started chipping away. Over the next five minutes, SU outscored the Tigers 15-3 to bring the score to 40-39 in favor of Trinity. Trinity then answered with nine unanswered points and led by at least eight points the rest of the game.
Caplan led Southwestern on offense, putting up 12 points on 3-14 shooting. He also pulled down seven rebounds in the loss and had three assists. Junior Ben Schleif (San Antonio, TX/Reagan HS) was 3-7 from the floor, 3-3 from three-point range, for 11 points.
Senior Casey Gorder (San Antonio, TX/Texas Military Institute) added eight points and seven rebounds for the Pirates while junior Mike Powell (Houston, TX/Episcopal HS) scored five points and was credited with a game-high five assists. Trinity's Charles Houston scored a game-high 25 points on 8-12 shooting and was 9-13 from the foul line.
The Pirates shot 31.4 percent in the contest while the Tigers hit 36 percent of their shots from the floor. Southwestern held a 39-37 advantage in rebounds. Both teams own identical 8-7 overall records and both are 3-2 in SCAC play.
Southwestern's next game is on Friday (Jan. 19) when the Pirates travel to Danville, KY to take on the Centre College Colonels at 8:00 p.m.
