DUBUQUE Iowa – The Coe College men's basketball team fell 77-76 to Loras College on Saturday afternoon thanks to a second-half rally from the Duhawks. Coe held a 10-point advantage after the opening half but Loras outscored Coe 44-33 in the final 20 minutes to barely squeak out the victory. The loss drops the Kohawks to 12-9 overall and 7-5 in the league while the Duhawks improve to 16-6 and 9-4 in the A-R-C.  
 
Adam McDermott led the Kohawks with 13 points while adding four rebounds in 26 minutes of action. Ray Thrapp and Josh Schmitt joined McDermott in double-figures with 10 points each while Zach Niemeyer, Austin Roth and Jacob Robertson added eight each. Roth, Robertson and Jarad Kruse led the Kohawks with five rebounds while Zach Niemeyer had a team-high four assists. 
 
Loras opened the game hot, outscoring the Kohawks 6-1 in the first three-plus minute of the game but Roth scored eight-straight points to put Coe in front at the 13:36 mark. Cole Navigato answered with a game-tying 3 for Loras on its next possession but that did not slow Coe's roll. The Kohawks then ripped off three consecutive long-balls from Schmitt, Thrapp and TJ Kaufmann, extending their lead to nine midway through the opening half. 
 
The Duhawks again stopped the run with a 3, this time from Rowan McGowen but the Kohawks continued to click on offense, scoring the next six points thanks to a 3 from Greg Hall and an old-fashioned 3-point play from Niemeyer. Trailing 24-12 with just under nine minutes to play, Loras dug its heels in and began to slowly chip away at the lead, using a 12-8 sput to cut the deficit to eight with 4:44 left in the opening half. McDermott answered the run with another 3 to push the lead past ten points but Loras settled in offensively and began to trade buckets with Coe for the remainder of the half. 
 
Loras trimmed the Kohawk lead down to seven thanks to five-straight points from McGowen but Niemeyer answered with five points of his own in the final minutes of the half to push the lead back to 10 at the break. Coe's hot shooting led to the halftime lead as it was 9-of-18 from downtown and 14-of-33 from the floor while holding Loras to just 5-of-13 from beyond in the arc in the opening 20 minutes. 
 
The Duhawks had another strong start to the half, opening with a 12-6 spurt in the first 4:55 of the frame to cut the Coe lead to four points. Coe momentarily slowed the run with a layup from Thrapp but Loras continued to click, going on a 9-5 run to tie the game at 54 with 11:28 left in the game. The squads were fairly even over the next few minutes of action, trading buckets until the Kohawks put together a short 6-3 run to push their lead to five with six minutes left.
 
The Duhawks immediately answered the run with one of their own, ripping off a 10-2 outburst in the next 3:15 to hold a 75-72 lead with just under three minutes to play. Despite trailing, the Kohawks then got four-straight points to regain a 76-75 advantage with 2:09 left in the game. The squads then went scoreless for nearly the remainder of the game but Loras took a 77-76 lead after a layup from Jackson Kollinski with 11 seconds to play. Coe had one final chance to pull off the road victory but Roth's attempt did not fall for the Kohawks as time expired. 
 
Up next: Coe is back in action on Wednesday with another road contest as the Kohawks travel to Indianola for a matchup with Simpson at 7:00 p.m.
 
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