Men's Basketball Loses to Carson-Newman

MARS HILL, N.C. – The Lions men's basketball squad lost to SAC foe Carson-Newman, 94-80 Tuesday night in Stanford Arena. Mars Hill fell to 0-5 overall and 0-3 in the SAC. The Eagles improved to 4-1 on the year, 2-1 in the conference.

Four Lions scored in double-digits. Thomas Anderson scored 17 while Isaiah Cuthbertson, Jalen Witherspoon and Carter Wright each tallied 16. Cuthbertson added a team high nine rebounds in the game.

Eagle guard Ishmael Sanders led all scorers with 31 points hitting six 3-pointers. He added six assists. Antoine Davis followed with 24 points while Kevin Leatherwood and Carson Brooks recorded 11 apiece.

MHU won the battle of the boards, 35-30. The Lions connected on only 53.8% (14-26) of their shots from the foul line. The Lions scored 22 second-chance points while the Eagles received 31 points from their bench. The teams combined for 42 turnovers in the contest, 21 miscues per team.

The Lions jumped out to an eight-point lead (16-8) after Cuthbertson hit a shot in the lane with 13:02 left in the first half.  A jumper by Sanders at the 10:29 mark capped off a 9-0 run by the Eagles to help them take a 17-16 lead. A layup by Davis extended Carson-Newman's lead to five points (26-21) with 7:52 left in the first frame. MHU then went on an 8-0 run of their run to lead 29-26 after Witherspoon hit a 3-pointer with 5:15 on the clock. The Eagles closed out the first period out scoring MHU, 17-6 to take a 43-35 advantage into the locker room at the intermission.

The Eagles started the second half on a 7-2 run to lead by 13 points (50-37) after Leatherwood hit a shot from 3-point range. Carson-Newman would maintain a double-figure lead for most of the second half. The Eagles' largest lead of 15 points (65-50) came with 11:30 left in regulation after Josh Rogers hit a couple of shots at the charity stripe. Two successful free throws by Cuthbertson trimmed the Lions' deficit to nine points with 7:28 left to play, but that was close as they would get.

Mars Hill will host Pfeiffer on November 30. Tip-off is set for 4 p.m.