Dec. 3, 2016 – Through the Concordia-Chicago men's basketball team's first five games, they found themselves playing catch-up after halftime. Today, the scenario was the opposite as the Cougars played their best first half of the early season. However, the Edgewood Eagles unleashed some torrid outside shooting in the second half as they gained the comeback victory, 85-75 over the Cougars.

The Eagles jumped to a quick 4-0 lead, but the Cougars came right back as Jarek Hotwagner hit a two and a three, and the teams were off and running. They stayed neck-and-neck for the first part of the half until the Cougars, trailing 17-14, ran off nine straight points. Mike Walmer, Israel Dosie and Justin Saar all contributed to the run with Saar's jumper giving CUC a 23-17 lead. The Eagles stayed close for the next few minutes, but consecutive threes by Louis Fernando and Walmer fueled a 7-0 run and put the Cougars up 36-24 late in the half. However, the Eagles closed the half with a 10-4 push while getting the Cougars into foul trouble, and Concordia-Chicago's halftime lead was just six points at 40-34.

With many observers figuring that Edgewood would continue their inside push to start the second half, it was in reality the Eagles' three-point shooting that completely turned the game around. Trailing by five in the opening minutes, Adam Freitag and Spencer Barnes buried back-to-back triples for EC's first lead since the early going. Following a free throw, McClain Steffens capped a 10-0 run with another Eagles' three. The Cougars recovered momentarily as Mitch Pelissier's three knotted the game at 50-50. However, Freitag answered with two more threes, and Edgewood was in front to stay.  Tyler Westrick's three extended the home team's lead to 10 at the 8:15 mark

Concordia-Chicago made one last rally as Dosie scored inside and Hotwagner made two free throws to bring CUC to within 70-66 with 3:13 remaining. Tyler Lemke scored the Eagles' final field goal 15 seconds later, and the last 2:58 turned into a march to both teams' free-throw lines.  The Cougars missed three key throws down the stretch, while the Eagles knocked down 13 of 14 to pull away. By the time CUC hit a couple of late threes, it was too little, too late as the Eagles grabbed the 10-point victory.

Edgewood won most of the stat categories, although three–point shooting and free-throw percentage were the most noticeable. The Cougars shot just 26 percent (7-27) from downtown, while the Eagles were 39 percent on 9-23. More telling, however, was the fact that Edgewood went from 1-8 in the first half to 53 percent (8-15) after halftime. Both teams shot 67 percent at the charity stripe, but the Cougars were 16-24 while the Eagles, due to the late-game situation with CUC fouling, were 28-42. Edgewood won the battle of the boards by a slim 38-36 margin and committed just seven turnovers while CUC was guilty of 11 miscues.

Freitag led all scorers with 23 points while Lemke followed with 14. Hotwagner led the Cougars with 13 points and 12 boards. Pelissier, Saar and Walmer all tallied 11 while Dosie added 10.

The Cougar men (1-5, 0-3 NACC) return to action next Saturday, Dec. 10 when they play at Wisconsin Lutheran College.