PAINESVILLE, Ohio - The Saginaw Valley State University men's basketball dropped its final contest of 2013 on Wednesay night (Dec. 18), 79-73 in a Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference matchup against the Lake Erie College Storm.
The game began with a hot shooting Cardinal team. Damon Bozeman and Lindsey Johnson accounted for 12 of the teams first 18 points off of jumpers from beyond the arc. Seconds later, Saginaw Valley took its first lead, 19-18 off of a successful Bozeman free throw at the 12:05 mark.
The Storm would end the opening half on a 5-0 run that gave them a 35-34 lead after the first 20 minutes of play.
Storm guard Thomas Riley dropped a three-pointer and a layup to increase the team's lead to six just 42 seconds in to the second half. Riley would continue to pour-in the points, increasing the Storm lead to 51-41 at the 14:57 mark.
The Cardinals came out of the first media timeout energized. Senior guard Michael Fugate made a layup that started a 9-3 run. The scoring spree was capped by a Garrett Hall three, cutting the lead to four points with 10:58 remaining at 54-50.
A few costly turnovers and fouls led the Storm to an 11 point lead, their largest margin of the game at the 7:21 mark.
Bozeman took charge in the last 5:13 of the game, scoring 11 points. Unfortunately, the comeback effort would come up just short. Lake Erie prevailed with the 79-73 win, earning its first conference victory.
SVSU shot 55.4% (31-56) from the field and 33.3% (8-24) from three in the contest. There was a significant disparity in free throw attempts, as the Storm attempted 20 shots from the charity stripe compared to just four for the the Cardinals.
Bozeman led all scorers with 29 points and 10 rebounds en-route to posting his first-career double-double. The performance earned him the rights of being named the Meijer "Player of the Game."
The Cardinals drop to 5-3 overall and 1-3 in the GLIAC after the loss while the Storm improve to 4-6 on the season and 1-3 in conference play.
The men are back in action in the new year as they take on Malone on Thursday (Jan. 2) at O'Neill Arena. Tip-off is set for 8:00 pm.