RIO GRANDE, Ohio — Michael Bowers obliterated the career high that he matched Friday night, scoring 28 points on 11-of-19 shooting to finish the weekend with 51 points in two games, but the Goshen College men's basketball team fell short down the stretch Saturday afternoon in an 87-78 loss to the University of Rio Grande in the finale of the Domino's Classic at URG's Newt Oliver Arena.
Austin Branagan contributed a season-high 19 points after going 10-of-13 at the foul line for Goshen (2-3). The only Maple Leaf who played but did not score, Phillip Hughes, led the team with 7 rebounds and 3 assists.
Rio Grande (1-1) got a game-high 33 points from Miki Tadic, who had 18 in the first half and 15 in the second on the strength of 6 3-pointers. Shiloah Blevins added 20 points while Kam Harris and Andrew Shull each scored 15. That quartet accounted for 83 of the 86 Red Storm points.
Bryanth Farr led all players with 9 rebounds for URG while Blevins had 6 assists to go with his 7 boards. Shull connected on a pair of triples as well.
The Red Storm shot 53 percent (9-of-17) from long distance and 55 percent (31-for-56) overall. Goshen checked in at 45 percent and 52 percent respectively.
Braden Kingery, who scored 6 points in his first career start, and Tahj Curry, who scored 10 points, each had a pair of Maple Leaf 3-pointers. Branagan finished with 3 assists and Curry had 4 boards.
Goshen jumped out to a 12-8 lead in the first five minutes on the strength of two of Bowers' four 3-point goals. Rio Grande scored on its next two possessions to take the lead and start a 13-4 run that peaked on a Harris bucket with 10:02 left in the half, giving the hosts a 26-18 lead.
The Maple Leafs got back within one, 44-43, when Flowers scored with 113 seconds left in the half, but Rio answered on the other end and led 46-43 at the intermission.
The host offense was a little late coming back from the locker room, waiting three and a half minutes for its first field goal of the second half. In that time, Bowers scored three points and Branagan had two in a 7-1 run to take a 50-47 lead. That edge got stretched to four on a Robert Sanders score with 15:08 left when it was 55-51.
Rio Grande stormed back to score the next five points to take the lead before the game was tied five times over the next five minutes. With 8:21 remaining, Branagan scored to level things at 65. Over the next three minutes, URG went on an 11-1 run as Goshen missed three shots and turned the ball over once.
The Maple Leafs had another run in them, ripping off seven straight points including a personal 5-0 run from Curry, whose '3' got the team back within 78-76 at the 2:33 mark. GC forced a turnover and had a shot for the lead with 1:54 left, but the 3-pointer missed and Rio started a 5-0 run of its own.
Curry scored again with 48 seconds remaining, bringing the margin within 5 at 83-78, but URG bled 27 seconds off the clock on their next trip and the Maple Leafs missed their last two shots.
Goshen is slated to return to action Wednesday against Trinity Christian College before hosting the University of Saint Francis next Saturday in a Crossroads League matchup. Both games are set for Gunden Gymnasium, tipping off at 7 p.m. and 1 p.m. respectively.
