SUPERIOR, Wis. --- Crown Men's Basketball lost a nail-biter against the UW-Superior Yellowjackets on Saturday despite tremendous performances from Christian Moore and Seth Royston. The junior Royston had game-highs of 22 points and eight rebounds, and the senior Moore added 18 points and matched Royston's eight boards.
The Yellowjackets started strong against the Storm, taking a double-digit lead into the halftime break. However, the Storm rallied back, and with eight minutes remaining, Micah Moan hit a humongous three-point shot to tie the game at 57 apiece. From there, the game was a battle with the competitors trading baskets. Superior pulled together a seven-point lead with a minute and change remaining. The Storm needed everything to go right from there.
Moore drew a foul to cut that lead to five, and Moan brought it to a one-possession with another drawn foul. Only 17 seconds remaining, a quick Storm foul led to a free throw pushing the Superior lead to four. With seven seconds left on the clock, Moan took contact on a three-point attempt, looking to get to the line. The shot went through, but, unfortunately for the Storm, the officials didn't view the contact as enough to warrant the four-point opportunity and cause the Storm to fall 77-74 to the conference rival.
The Storm drop to 3-4 in conference play and look locked into the middle seed with one conference game remaining. The Storm will face Northwestern at the Wild Athletic Center on Thursday to finish their regular season.
Coach Herbert talking with Seth Royston. Royston had a career-high 22 points in the contest.
Along with the great games for Royston and Moore, Micah Moan had a clutch performance in his second start for the Storm. Moan scored 12 points on only seven shots and dished two assists, making difficult offensive plays look easy. The rest of the Storm's scoring came from Alec Testerman (six points), Aaron Davis (five points), Quincy Wilson (four points), Jacob Van Dam (three points), Cade Neubert (two points), and Cole Andersen (two points).
First-year Micah Ladd led the team with four assists in the contest, leading the offense and only turning the ball over once in 33 minutes of action. For the second straight game, the team shot nearly 40% from three-point range and made 87% of their shots from the charity stripe.
Crown will next face the Nebraska Wesleyan Prairie Wolves on Monday, fresh off a 68-51 win over Luther College in Decorah.
