On Saturday night, the Alma College men's basketball team hosted MIAA foe Trine University in a big early league contest at Art Smith Arena. The visiting Thunder used strong shooting and took advantage of a poor night from the field to defeat the Scots by a margin of 74-56.

The Scots are now 1-2 in the MIAA and 2-12 overall, while Trine improved to 3-1 in the league and 10-5 in 2013-14.

"We just didn't have the level of energy tonight that we have had the last few games," said Alma Head Coach Sam Hargraves. "Trine played really well on both ends and that certainly didn't help. Tyler Good was Tyler Great tonight as we couldn't guard him. We got some good looks at jump shots in the first half and didn't make many.

"We have to make jump shots to win. Even our free throw shooting was bad and I was really happy with how many attempts we had tonight. Hopefully we can get the energy back for Wednesday."

The first 20 minutes were entertaining and well played and the Scots jumped out of the gate quickly. The home team led 9-4 after a lay-up by So. G Scott Nikodemski (Rockford/Rockford) but the Thunder would respond as well.

The contest was tied at 9-9, 15-15 and 17-17 before Trine opened up a bit of a gap and led 24-21 after two free throws by Sr. F Isiah Law (Grand Haven/Grand Haven) at the 8:02 mark. A 11-4 run by the Thunder gave them a 35-24 advantage 5:30 later and they were able to maintain that healthy margin the rest of the half.

A last second tip-in by Trine's Jared Holmquist put the team ahead 42-30 as the teams filed off the court for halftime. The big difference of the first half was shooting percentage from the floor as Trine finished at 61% (19 of 31), while Alma was 36% (10 of 28).

A three-pointer by Alma Fr. G Chase Fairchild (Rockford/Rockford) to begin the second half cut the deficit to nine and gave the home team the hope of a comeback. However, that just wasn't going to be the case tonight. Trine played too well and the Scots were just a step off their game.

With 16:15 left in the game, Trine extended their lead to 54-36 and the game remained with a few points of that margin the rest of the way. Alma's biggest deficit of the evening was at 70-45 at the 8:33 mark and no surge was forthcoming.

Both teams used much of their bench during the final minutes and the Thunder finished the night with the 74-56 road victory against the Scots.

Offensively, Alma was led by Sr. G Brandon Krause's (Sanford/Meridian) 15 points and team-high three assists. Nikodemski and Fairchild were next in line in scoring with 11 and 10 respectively, while So. G DJ Beckman (Shelby/Shelby) had a squad-best eight rebounds.

Trine finished the contest shooting 51% (28 of 55) and hit on seven of 13 attempts from beyond the three-point arc, while the Scots hit on 38% of their shots (17 of 45) but were good on just four of 18 from three-point land. The Thunder won the battle of the boards by a 31-30 margin, while Alma had 12 turnovers to Trine's eight.

The Scots will look to rebound on Wednesday evening when the Flying Dutchmen of Hope College invade Art Smith Arena. The MIAA tilt is scheduled to tip-off at 7:30 p.m. with a JV game preceding it at 5:15 p.m.