Contact: Emily Adlfinger, Director of Athletic Communications, 563-588-7970

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Dec. 1, 2021) – In its first American Rivers Conference (A-R-C) road matchup of the season, the Loras College men's basketball team (5-1, 1-1 A-R-C) fell 73-64 to the Coe College Kohawks (8-1, 2-0 A-R-C) on Wednesday in a back-and-forth battle from start to finish in Cedar Rapids.  

The Kohawks put up the first points on the board but Myles Barry put the Duhawks ahead with a three-pointer before Cole Navigato put up a jump shot to give Loras a 5-2 lead. Coe came back to tie it twice in the next two minutes but a three-pointer by Ali Sabet followed by a pair of free-throws by Jake Healy and a layup for Jackson Kolinski gave the Duhawks a 14-9 lead with 12:51 to go in the first half. Coe took a one-point lead with 8:46 to go but two free throws by Declan Ciurlik put Loras back in the lead. The Kohawks came back on the next possession to challenge and take another one-point lead but it was short lived as Alex Singleton found space in the paint to make the jump shot and Healy hit his free-throws to go back in control with 6:38 left in the half. Both teams continued to vie for the momentum and break away and that moment happened first for the Duhawks as Barry made a layup with 3:19 on the clock, drew the foul, and completed the three-point play which sparked a four-point run to close out the half with Loras up 31-25.

The Kohawks took control of the game to start the second half, opening up an 8-0 run in the first three minutes to take a 35-31 lead. Ciurlik and Kolinski stopped the momentum with a pair of layups but Coe kept rolling and extended the lead to nine, up 48-39 with 13:16 on the clock. Back-to-back buckets for Ciurlik helped Loras close the gap and a three-pointer by Barry brought them within striking distance for Kolinski to tie the game, 50-50, off a layup. In the final ten minutes, the teams traded the lead four times, including two go-ahead layups for Singleton, but the Kohawks found a groove in the final six minutes to post a 16-6 run and pull away for the win.

Ciurlik led the team with a career-high 14 points, shooting a career-best 6-8 from the field and 2-2 at the line while also grabbing three rebounds and adding a pair of assists. Sabet scored ten on the night while Navigato led the team with six rebounds. The Kohawks flipped the script after a poor first half of three-point shooting to go 55 percent from beyond the arc, leading to a 48-point second half fueled by five three-pointers. Loras' bench came up big with 28 points and held a slight edge against Coe with 30 rebounds.

The Duhawks take on Buena Vista University on Saturday, Dec. 4 with a 4 P.M. tip-off in Storm Lake, Iowa.