By Scott DeWeerd, '15

The Albion College men's basketball team came out on the losing end of a defensive struggle against Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association rival Trine University. Despite leading most of the second half, the Britons gave up a 7-2 run in the final three minutes to lose, 45-44. 

After a Will Dixon layup gave the Thunder a 45-42 lead, the Trine strategy was to foul Albion, sending them to the free throw line in a double-bonus situation with eight seconds left. Robert Ryan sank both free throws to cut the deficit to one, and the Britons took a timeout to set up the full-court press. 

The Briton defense smothered the inbound play, forcing Trine to call a timeout just before the five-second interval on the inbound rule ran out. On the next play, Trine was able to get the ball in but the Albion defense once again swarmed the ball forcing Jared Holmquist to throw it off an Albion defenders leg and out of bounds. Trine gave the inbound one more attempt, and the Albion defense once again shut the play down. But unfortunately for the Britons, Trine was able hold onto the ball until the clock ran out. 

Albion Head Coach Jody May was proud of his team's defensive effort. "[Will Dixon] is the No. 1 scorer in the league and our plan was to force him into tough shots," May said. "I think we did a great job defensively." 

The Britons held Dixon to 36 percent shooting from the field (4-of-11) and 25 percent from beyond the arc (1-of-4). 

Corey Wheeler led the attack for the Britons with 16 points, 12 coming in the second half where he was 4-of-10 from the field and shot 50 percent from beyond the arc. 

"Corey is our guy to step up when we need to be aggressive," May said about the first-year guard. "And he stepped up and played aggressive tonight."

Jordan Herron added four points, 10 rebounds, three assists, and a steal while helping the Albion defense hold Trine's starting front-court, Ellis Cummings and Tyler Good, to two total combined points on 1-of-10 shooting from the field and four combined rebounds. 

"We were a great defensive team for the first 10 games of the season, but we let that slip," said May. "We started to get back there tonight." 

Albion struggled to get shots off against a high pressure Trine squad that employs the pack line defense. The Britons shot just 31 percent from the field (15-of-49) and 17 percent from beyond the arc (2-of-12). 

"Their defense is designed to pressure us," said May. "It was tough for us to move the ball how we like to." 

Albion will host Calvin College on Saturday for the regular season finale. The Britons will pause to recognize seniors Carter Elliott, Vince Hill, Zach Hurth and Seth Hubbard prior to the 3 o'clock game.