Kissimmee, FL – The NCCAA #4 Grace Tigers opened up their classic at Johnson University-Florida with a match-up with NCCAA #1 Randall University, who has defeated them the past two seasons at the NCCAA tournament.  Unsurprisingly, the Saints and Tigers would go wire-to-wire as they have in their past few meetings to result in the developing rivalry.

The first half was very sluggish for both teams offensively, with turnovers and missed shots being the result of the majority of the possessions.  The Saints would go into the break leading 28-27.  Randall would flip a switch at the beginning of the second half, creating momentum immediately and extending their lead to 59-47 with 11 minutes to go in the game.  The Tigers would turn things around at this point and chip away at the lead, trimming it all the way to one point and setting the stage for an exciting finish.

With under 15 seconds remaining, the Tigers had the ball and were down two points.  They would unfortunately throw a turnover as nothing came to fruition on the out-of-bounds play.  They forced a turnover on the next possession from Randall, only to be matched with another turnover of their own to allow the Saints to regain possession and knock down two free throws to go up 68-64 and seal the victory.  The final score would end 68-66 after a basket from Grace to finish the game.

"We continue to lose games because we don't take care of the ball," commented Head Coach Gary Bailey.  "Randall is a great team and you can see why they are the reigning National Champion.  Until we get over our inability to take care of the ball we will not close out games like this, like we should."

Senior center Adam Rayner led the Tigers with 15 points on 6-7 shooting from the field.  Brandon Winchester-Jones and Caleb Anderson both pitched in 10 points.  Winchester-Jones had a team-high 4 assists and 4 steals.

The Tigers return to action tonight at 8:00 pm against the host school, Johnson University-Florida.