St. Bonifacius, Minn. – Despite trailing by 20 points early in the second half, the Crown men's basketball team earned an 85-81 win over visiting Lakeland University in their season opener on Friday night.  The Wild Athletic Center was electric as Crown utilized highlight reel dunks and timely defense to erase the deficit and claim the non-conference victory.

The visiting Muskies used an 8-0 run to open the second half after leading by 12 at the break to build their 20 point lead with 18:07 remaining in the game.  At that point, Crown turned to their bench and the group of Gabe Rojas Gomez, Christian Oldenettel, Cade Neubert, Drew Burnett, and Carter Behne gave the Storm a lift, responding with a 7-0 run to get the team back within striking distance. 

After the Muskie lead held at 13, the Crown starting five re-entered the game and went on a 6-0 run to cut things to seven, but gave the momentum right back, allowing a pair of three pointers to Aiden Polzin to push the visitors lead back to 13. 

Crown chipped away for the next eight and a half minutes, eventually tying the game at 73-73 on a Behne layup with 5:26 to play.  The Storm took their first lead since the 12:44 mark of the first half with just 1:28 to play on two clutch Micah Ladd free throws. 

Crown would lead the rest of the way, but not without some drama.

On the ensuing possession Seth Royston came up with a massive block to deny the go-ahead layup and then stole a pass and took it the length of the court for a thunderous dunk to push the lead to three at 82-79.

After Cade Carroll grabbed a defensive rebound and split a pair of free throws, the Muskie's Earl Lewis hit a touch step-back three to cut the lead to one.  Carroll was fouled on the inbound and again split free throws to give Crown an 83-81 lead.

Having fouls to give, Crown did so in the backcourt, and with under five seconds to go Lewis slipped and Ladd scooped up the loose ball and coasted in for a layup to seal the game with just 1.1 seconds remaining.

Carroll led Crown with 19 points and chipped in a team high eight rebounds to go along with a highlight reel dunk of his own in the first half, but the story of the game was Crown's depth and contributions from the bench.

Royston joined Carroll in double figures with 13 and matched his eight rebounds to go along with four blocks, but eight other players scored for Crown in the win.  Alec Testerman had a great line with nine points, six boards, and four assists in 35 minutes, Ladd had eight points, and a team high eight assists and five steals, and fellow starter Jacob Van Dam chipped in five points and four boards.

The bench gave Crown a huge lift, not just early in the second half, but in the first half as well, accounting for 31 points and outscoring the Lakeland bench by 16.  Neubert had eight, matched by eight from Oldenettel while Behne contributed seven points, two boards, four assists, and a pair of steals.  Rojas Gomez had six and Drew Burnett added two. 

Crown shot just 3-25 from beyond the arc and 12-19 at the free throw line, but used a 39-33 advantage on the glass, including eleven offensive rebounds, and a 64-32 advantage in points in the paint to claim the season-opening victory.  The defense also forced 17 turnovers to offset Lakeland's hot shooting from the outside. 

Crown gets right back into action on Saturday when they host Beloit at 2 p.m. in the Wild Athletic Center in what looks to be an extremely entertaining season.