Berrien Springs, MI – If Coach Gary Bailey has a Christmas wish for this year it may be for basketball games to be shortened to 38 minutes or that his team will learn how to finish off a game for 40 minutes.  The Tigers fell to two time defending USCAA National Champion, Andrews University 72-69 last night.

“This is the third game in this short season that we led for all or most of the game only to hand it away in the last minute or two, said Coach Bailey.  “We missed three front ends of the one and one and had three straight turnovers in the last minute and a half.  We have to start growing up and handling the late game pressure and learn how to finish.  I told the guys after the game that I thought our defense was really good and that our offense stuck to the game plan and was efficient but we have to learn how to win.  This Andrews team is very, very good and they play their match-up zone as well as I have ever seen but we cannot keep serving it up to teams late in the game.”

The Tigers out-shot the Cardinals 52% to 46% but was out-rebounded by AU 35-24.  Nick Mascorro led Grace with 15 points while BJ VanLoo added 13 and Greg Salmon had 10. Salmon once again led GBC in rebounding with 7.

The Tigers will travel across town on Friday and Saturday to play in the Calvin College Tournament.  Grace will play Calvin at 7:30 pm on Friday.