ALBION – Calvin had the big game experience Albion hopes to get more of.

Playing on the road in front of the loudest Kresge Gymnasium crowd of the season, the Knights ripped off a 9-0 run to build a double-digit lead midway through the second half and it went on to hand the Britons a 68-49 setback.

"That's a veteran group for them," Albion Coach Jody May said. "We still have to get that experience to play through the stuff that happened in the second half. They made a little run on us, and we didn't handle the adversity very well."

Lawrence Ridgell produced layups on consecutive possessions as Albion trailed 36-34 with 16 minutes left. The Britons had three possessions to forge a tie or take the lead, but the three shots they took were off the mark.

Calvin's run started with a pair of free throws by Daniel Stout and one from Tyler Dykstra. Mickey DeVries added a layup and Tyler Kruis put the exclamation point on the run with a pair of dunks.

"We missed some easy shots and that affected how we played defense," May said. "Our defense has to remain consistent no matter what we do on the offensive end."

Eric Evans scored five of his 17 points as Albion pulled within 45-39, but that was as close as the Britons would get. Calvin repelled the Albion rally when Jordan Brink knocked down a pair of 3-point shots.

Brink, who finished 6-of-12 from the field, matched his season-high of 22 points. Kruis contributed 13 points and 10 rebounds for his first double-double of the season.

Albion, which finished the first half of the league season with a 5-2 record, can't let the loss carryover. It begins the second half of the league schedule at 7:30 p.m. Saturday with a home game against Kalamazoo.

"We need to learn from this," May said. "We need to get better and move on. For us to win the league we need to do better than we did in the first round."