The Mayville State Men's Basketball team ventured out west for their third game in four days, taking on the University of Mary out in Bismarck, N.D. for another non-conference exhibition game on Tuesday evening. It looked at times that the game was going to run away from the Comets with the Marauders hitting some high scoring streaks, but a second half comeback by MSU wouldn't quite be enough as the Comets fell 81-71 to U-Mary on the road. 

After a tie at 4, the Comets gained the lead with a 12-5 run, netting 10 straight points coming from the trio of Daniel Lindgren, Jack Turnbull and Gorg Alhag. U-Mary answered it back with 7 straight to tie it up for the second time in the game at 16 all.  The two teams punched back and forth with narrow leads of 3 or less, tying it up three more times on the way to 26. The Comets would take the lead with Michael Slaba's second three of the night at 7:41 to play, but a big dry spell would hit the Comets for over 6 minutes of play soon after that. During that time span, U-Mary hit a stretch with a 16-0 run to take advantage of that drought. Jack Turnbull would end the scoreless streak with a 3 to take the U-Mary lead down to 10, but a last second three by the Marauders would give them a 13 point lead at the break.

A quick three-pointer by Gorg Alhag to start the second half would cut the lead down to 10, but U-Mary would extend the lead by as much as 19 with a nine point effort that followed. The Comets would find a small run of their own to counter it, started by a Creighton Pfau bucket and 5 consecutive points from Leon Williams to make it 54-42.  More back and forth scoring by both squads would creep the Marauder lead up to 14, making MSU call a timeout with 11:30 to play and the score sitting at 65-51.  It was a good strategy by Coach Darren Tighe, as the Comets made a huge run thereafter. A host of Comets would score 17 points and limit U-Mary to just 6, able to close the gap to just 3 points. A nice 3-point play by Williams would cut the lead to 10, while a three from Pfau and consecutive buckets from Alhag and Eric Stabler would cut it down to 3.  This caused U-Mary to take two more timeouts: one at 5:43 to go with their lead down to 8, and finally at 4:02 with a 3-point lead. The Comets were just one possession away from tying this one up, but were unable to get the shots to fall in the final minutes. Jack Turnbull would hit the final three-pointer for the Comets to make it 71-78, but U-Mary was able to escape this one with the 81-71 win. Five U-Mary players would end the night in double figures. They were led by Evan Anderson with 14 points. He also had 4 steals in the contest.

Head Coach Darren Tighe was happy with his team's effort, but stated that some of the mistakes need to be cleaned up. "I  like how we battled back in second half. Defensive miscues in the first half hurt just as bad as miscues in the second half. We're progressing  defensively and that's a good sign."

Leading for the Comets and with a game-high was Gorg Alhag with 16. He had an excellent night behind the arc with 4-5 on three's and 6-11 from the field. Creighton Pfau would be the other Comet in double figures, scoring 11 on 40 percent shooting from the field. Eric Staebler led with a game-high of 11 rebounds. Kobe Critchley, Daymarrco Green and Eric Staebler had 3 assists each in the game. 

The Comets shot just 31 percent in the first half with a better second half effort of 38 percent for an average of 35 percent in the ball game. U-Mary was just shy of 48 percent from the field in the game.

MSU will take a much needed rest between games, as their next one will be at the University of North Dakota on Friday, December 14th at 7 p.m.