EUGENE, Ore. – After erasing a 13-point first-half deficit and holding a lead with two minutes to play, the Northwest Christian University men's basketball team led an upset bid fall short on Friday night, dropping a crucial game to Warner Pacific, 57-50.
 
The Beacons opened the contest without any shooting touch as they went 1-for-14 from three-point range in the first half. The Knights took advantage as they owned a 30-17 lead at the intermission.
 
Buckets started to fall in the second half, however, and the home team began to mount a huge comeback. Doug Thomas gave the Knights a 15-point lead with his jumper on the first possession of the period, but NCU went on a 9-0 run to climb within six points after a pair of three-pointers from Jack Hackman (pictured).
 
WPC built the lead back up to ten, 38-28 with 14:39 to play but the next six minutes belonged to the Beacons. Another Hackman triple began a 19-4 run for the home team, which was sealed by a Travis Pacos jumper as NCU jumped ahead 47-42 with 8:42 remaining.
 
The shooters, however, once again went cold for NCU and Warner Pacific closed the game on a 15-3 run of their own, capped off by six free throws by Coleton Tarr in the final 34 seconds.
 
Warner Pacific (20-5, 10-3 CCC) shot 40% in the game and was 11-for-12 on the night from the free throw line. Ryan Parks came off the bench to lead the Knights with 14 points, hitting four three-pointers. Tarr finished with 12 points and a team-high eight rebounds.
 
NCU (15-8, 8-6) ended the game shooting at just a 30.6% clip including just 6-for-14 at the charity stripe. Hackman finished with 12 points as the only Beacon in double-figures in scoring. Jay Mayernik added eight points and a game-high ten rebounds and Omar Richards came off the bench to score eight as well. The Beacons out-rebounded WPC 40-37 for the game.
 
The silver lining for the Beacons came two ways with a pair of upsets in Washington. In Kirkland, Northwest University took down No. 17 Southern Oregon, 84-68, leaving the Raiders (19-6, 9-5) just one game ahead of the Beacons for fourth place. In Olympia, Evergreen claimed their first conference win of the season, 73-71 over Oregon Tech which kept the Owls two full games behind NCU with four games remaining.
 
The Beacons will look to respond with another tough task on Saturday night, hosting No. 12 Concordia at 7:30 p.m. The Cavaliers are currently tied with Warner Pacific for second-place in the CCC, and will look to pull into a first-place tie with The College of Idaho with a victory. The Knights will be in Salem to take on Corban, also at 7:30 p.m.