HOLLAND - The Calvin's men's basketball season came to an end on Saturday night, losing 72-67 to Hope in the MIAA championship game. The game was held at Hope's DeVos Fieldhouse.
Calvin never held a lead in the game, and allowed the Dutch to widen their lead through periodic scoring runs. The first of which came just three minutes into the game. Hope's Ty Tanis, who finished the game 5-7 from beyond the arc, cashed in on two consecutive three's to give the Dutch an early six point advantage. Soon thereafter, Will Bowser knocked down another triple, making the score 15-6 and forcing a Calvin timeout.
From there, Calvin would cut the lead to five, but struggled to do anything past that. Freshman Tyler Kruis threw down a slam to cut the lead to 22-17 and senior Trent Salo hit a late triple to make the deficit five points. But Hope always had an answer, Chris Ray hit a lay-up to respond to Kruis' dunk and Nate Dickerson drained a fall-away jumper at the buzzer to keep Hope's halftime lead at seven.
In the second half, Calvin struggled to cut the lead below double digits until late in the game. With a minute to play, senior Brent Schuster hit a three to cut the deficit to six and junior Brian Haverdink turned a Jordan Brink steal into two points, tightening the score to 68-65. But Calvin's next offensive possession was inefficient, and Hope connected on its free throws to finish the game at 72-67.
"Their mental determination was better than ours," said Coach Kevin Vande Streek after the game. "I thought they did the dictating, particularly in the first half. "
The game concludes Calvin's season. Sophomore Tom Snikkers led the Knights with 20 points and senior Danny Rodts led Calvin on the boards with eight rebounds.
In the contest, freshman Jordan Brink connected on a pair of free throws to finish the year 52-of-56 at the line for a new Calvin single-season record of 92.9 percent (minimum 50 free throw attempts). The old record had been 92.0 percent shared by Greg Broene (1973-74) and Matt Veltema (2009-10).