Dan Dame 17 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals

Dubuque, IA:  The Tigers made it 9 wins in a row with an 81-69 victory over Maranatha in the NCCAA II Midwest Region Tip Off Tourney.  Allen Durham led Grace with 18 points and 8 rebounds.  Dan Dame added 17, Cory Jamieson 13, and Ryan Krombeen 11.  All ten players that dressed found the scoring column.  Jamieson led GBC with 7 assists and Dan Dame added 6.  For the second straight game the Tigers had to play without Ryan Dame and John Oostema due to injury and illness.

The Tigers opened up a 24 point lead with just under 4 minutes to play.  Coach Gary Bailey emptied his bench but the Crusaders were not ready to throw in the towel.  “This was a great learning experience for some of our guys that haven’t been in this situation,” said Bailey.  Coach Neil did a great job of using his players and timeouts to cut into the lead.  It was really nice to see what some of our newer guys and players that don’t have as many minutes, would do with this type of pressure.  With us only dressing ten players right now, we need our bench to step up.  We are a  really banged up team right now and we need to get healthy.  We have five players that we are waiting to get back into action.  All of these players are major contributors on our team.” 

MBBC could not get any closer than 12 points before time ran out.  Both teams pulled down 34 rebounds and had  6 steals.  GBC held a 22-10 advantage in assists  .

The Tigers will be back in action on Tuesday night as they host Kuyper College in the 5th annual Cross Cup game played this year at Grace in the Aldrich Center.

Dan Dame, Ryan Dame, and Aaron Schutte all suffered injuries in the first game of the tip-off tournament. John Oostema remained at the hotel with the flu.