St. Bonifacius, Minn. – On a night when the Crown men's basketball team honored former star Tim Wendel by retiring his number 42, the action on the court was equal to the pre-game ceremony.  Crown battled the visiting Bethany Lutheran College Vikings, but came up just short, 80-75. 

Crown trailed 37-34 at the break, and after a good run to start the second half saw the Storm lead by four, the home team trailed by as many as 11 points with 10:40 remaining.  Slowly but surely, Crown climbed back into the game and got to within a single point at 74-73 with 3:44 remaining.  The team wouldn't be able to get any closer than that as BLC closed out the game on a 6-2 run to secure the victory.

Cade Carroll had 25 points to lead all scorers and added 10 rebounds for another double-double.  Jacob Van Dam nearly had his second consecutive double-double, with 19 points and nine rebounds, and Micah Ladd had an efficient night with eleven points on 5-7 shooting. 

Crown will play a makeup game from last weekend when they travel to UW-Superior on Wednesday and then host Minnesota Morris on Saturday as the conference season hits the home stretch.