The Hillsdale College men's basketball team fell to one of the Midwest Region's hottest teams in Saturday's Great Midwest Athletic Conference championship game, losing to Ohio Dominican 71-53 at the University of Findlay's Croy Gymnasium.
The loss makes Hillsdale 21-9 on the season. The Chargers will learn their postseason fate at the NCAA Tournament selection show, broadcast on NCAA.com, at 10:30 p.m. Sunday night.
The Panthers, who on Friday knocked out top-seeded Findlay in a stunning 68-66 upset, carried that positive momentum into the start of Saturday's game, jumping out to leads of 8-0 and 24-11. ODU played with a high level of execution and energy, running plays to get quick, easy layups at the rim and knocking down a couple of perimeter shots to extend out to a double digit lead right away.
Hillsdale was behind 32-20 at halftime, and missed 12 of its 13 attempts from behind the 3-point line.
The deficit grew in the second half as the Panthers didn't let up one bit on either end of the floor. ODU led by as many as 23 points in the second half as the Chargers struggled to string together offense in the game.
After a first half that saw the team shoot 28 percent from the floor, the Chargers improved slightly to 41 percent in the second half, but finished the game 4-for-28 from the 3-point line. Many of those shots bounced off the front of the rim, a possible by-product of three intense games in three days.
Ohio Dominican shot 49 percent from the field, but held a healthy 18-3 scoring edge at the free throw line. The Panthers took 25 free throw attempts in the game compared to five for the Chargers.
Senior Ryan Badowski led the way for Hillsdale with 15 points, going 7-for-12 from the field. Senior Stedman Lowry scored 9 points and his younger brother Dylan also scored 9.