ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Hamline men's basketball team (0-1) outscored Crown College (1-1) by 13 in the second half, but were unable to get past a slow start in their season-opener, falling to the Storm 83-80 at Hutton Arena on Wednesday night.
 
Crown took an early lead in the game and found themselves up 28-13 after 11 minutes of play. They would keep their double-digit lead for the majority of the rest of the half, taking a 16-point lead (43-27) into the intermission.
 
The Storm started the second half on a 5-0 run to increase their lead to 21. From here, the teams went back-and-forth for the next 10 minutes, before Hamline really started to chip away at Crown's lead. An HU 10-2 scoring run (eight of which were scored by Jake Larson) got the Pipers within nine with over eight minutes left to play.
 
Hamline eventually got the Crown lead down to five with a little less than two minutes to go. Crown answered this threat, though, scoring the next five to push their lead back to double figures with a minute left. The Pipers were not done yet, however, as both Michael Dillon and Larson hit threes to once again make it a five-point game.
 
Crown hit a free-throw to make it 83-77 with only 17 seconds left, but on the next play Larson came up clutch again, draining a three to make it a single possession game. The Pipers forced a turnover off their full-court press, and got two shots off within the final seconds, but neither would fall to allow the Storm to escape with the 83-80 decision.
 
Dillon led the Pipers, ending with a double-double (20 points, 12 rebounds) as well as three steals, three blocks, and two assists. The 20 points was a career-high for the Colorado native. Larson was not far behind Dillon, scoring 19 points, while also adding four assists and four boards.
 
Lucas Berg chipped in with 11 points and Conner Krenos came off the bench to provide an additional 11 points for HU.
 
As a team, Hamline held a 21-2 edge in points off turnovers, getting 15 of those 21 points in the second half. Crown held the advantage in rebounds (50-38) as well as shooting percentage (48% - 39%). Each team made double-digit threes in the game, with HU knocking down 14 to Crown's 10.
 
The Storm were led by Timothy Wendel, who went 10-21 to finish with a game-high 32 points.
 
The Pipers are back in action next Wednesday (November 20), hosting non-conference opponent Northwestern for a 7:30 p.m. game.