A cold shooting first quarter in which the ACGC boys made only one of six field goal tries pretty much set the tone in last night's loss to Earlham, 68-42. The Chargers managed only three points in the first stanza, digging an early hole that they were never able to climb out of. Trailing 12-3 after the initial quarter, the Charger shooting improved somewhat in the second frame but the Cardinals put together a nineteen point second quarter to take a sixteen point lead into the intermission, 31-15. With the score at 16-8, Earlham had a 7-0 run to give it a fifteen point lead midway through the quarter, and rebuffed any Charger challenge after that. A sticky man defense by Earlham made it difficult for ACGC to get into much of an offensive flow throughout the game.

The WCAC has several very solid boys' teams this year, and Earlham is among them. The Cardinals can boast of their 59-52 win over Des Moines Christian in late November, a game in which they held the Lions to 22 points in the second half to come back from a 30-16 halftime deficit. So the Chargers knew what thy were up against when they went into this game.

Earlham increased its lead to 51-23 with a twenty point third quarter while the Charges could muster only eight. The final eight minutes was played largely by non-starters for both teams, with ACGC having its best quarter of the night as it put nineteen points on the board in the final eight minutes. Earlham ace, Trent Williamson, was scoring at a 21 point pace going into this game, but the Chargers managed to hold him to 8 points on the night.

Bryce Littler had his best scoring night of the young season, as he hit for 17 points on 7 of 14 shooting from the field and 2 of 4 from the free throw line. Will Byars seems to be finding the range as he scored 6 points for the second consecutive game. Littler and Lucas Marsh each grabbed 6 rebounds. As a team the Chargers shot 38% from the field on 17 of 45 shooting, including 3 makes out of 14 attempted treys. From the line ACGC made 5 of 10 shots. A total of 17 turnovers resulted in 26 Earlham points--the margin of victory for the Cardinals. Unofficial statistics show Earlham making 24 of 28 field goals attempts for 50%.

The boys have an opportunity in their next game to end their losing streak when they travel to Glidden-Ralston tomorrow (Thursday) to face the 0-5 Wildcats. The girls game is scheduled for 6 PM with the boys to follow. Go Chargers!

Score by Quarters:

ACGC 3 12 8 19--42

Earlham 12 19 20 17--68

REB

FG 3Pt FT O-D AST STL TP

EKading 2-4 0-2 0-2 1-0 1 0 4

Sargent 1-1 1-1 0-0 1-1 0 0 3

Nelson 1-7 0-1 2-2 1-1 1 1 4

Marsh 2-8 0-4 0-0 1-5 0 1 4

MKading 1-2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 2

Byars 2-2 1-1 1-2 0-1 0 2 6

Pauley 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 0

Littler 7-14 1-5 2-4 0-6 1 0 17

Madsen 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Younker 1-6 0-0 0-0 2-2 1 1 2