The Emporia State Men’s basketball team opened their season at home with two losses, falling to the University of Sioux Fall and Southwest Minnesota State Nov. 10 and 11.
Friday’s game against Sioux Falls went into overtime, but the extra minutes were not enough to propel the Hornets to a win. The final score was 89-94.
Sioux Falls opened the game with a 11-3 lead. Throughout the game, ESU rallied to come back to take their first lead of the game 14-13.
The game volleyed back and forth over the first half, and immediately after halftime, the Hornets took control of the game. With less than 19 minutes to go in the game, the score was 49-40.
Junior guard Brandon Hall passed to junior forward Hassan Thomas, and Thomas’ three-pointer with 8.4 seconds left sent the game to overtime.
The Cougars scored six points at the start of overtime, and the Hornets could not recover.
Thomas led the team with 24 points and six rebounds, while senior guard Brian Morton added 19. Hall added 18, and sophomore guard Grant Shell contributed 13.
Saturday’s game against Southwest Minnesota proved to be more competitive in score, but ESU still lost.
Nine players contributed to the score against the Mustangs, but were still outscored 66-70 at the end of the day.
Brandon Hall led the team with 30 points, followed by Morton with eight and senior forward Stephaun Limuel with seven.
Tonight, the Hornets will host Kansas Wesleyan University. Tip-off will be at 7 p.m.