EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- The No. 5 Alabama-Huntsville Chargers efeated the No. 2 Railsplitters 91-67 to hand Lincoln Memorial its worst loss since 2008 on Saturday evening, Nov. 19 in the inaugural Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic held at the Ford Center.

In a highly-anticipated clash between two of the winningest programs in the NCAA Division II over the past decade, the Chargers, now 3-1, led wire-to-wire, built as large as a 31-point lead and sent the 3-1 Railsplitters back to Harrogate with their worst loss of the Coach Josh Schertz era. "That's probably as disappointing of a performance that we've had here in my tenure as the head coach," Schertz said. "Tough and smart wins, and we are not either of those things and Alabama-Huntsville is. I'll put it in a nice term; we are a very finesse team right now. "Credit to them, they exposed the issues that I think have been lingering with this team. It's a general lack of toughness and lack of attention to detail. Until we get those cleared up, we're not a very good basketball team. We're not right now and we've got to go back to work and try and get good enough to be competitive on Tuesday." Almost everything went wrong for Lincoln Memorial while almost everything went right for Alabama-Huntsville. The Chargers shot 55 percent from the field, connecting on 33 of their 60 shot attempts including a 20-for-32 effort (62.5 percent) in the first half. The Railsplitters shot 40 percent from the field while converting just four of their 18 three-point attempts and seven of their 18 free throws. Alabama-Huntsville also dominated the backboards, outrebounding the Railsplitters 47-31. All of that added up to Lincoln Memorial's worst loss since the tail end of the 2007-08 campaign, when Wingate handed the Railsplitters a 29-point loss on February 2. Redshirt-freshman Cornelius Taylor of Claxton, Ga., led the Railsplitters with a career-high 14 points, but he needed 14 shots to reach that mark. Luquon Choice (Laurens, S.C.) finished with 10 points and six rebounds over 40 minutes of action, going 4-for-10 from the field during that span. Chris Perry (Bartow, Fla.) notched 10 points and eight rebounds in 19 minutes of work off the bench. Deshawn Patterson (Lenoir, N.C.) contributed a career-high nine points in 16 minutes, while Dorian Pinson (Greenville, S.C.) had seven points and seven rebounds. Malik Cook-Stroupe, meanwhile, led the Chargers with a game-high 19 points on 7-of-8 shooting, while Brandon Roberts had 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting. Seab Webster put up a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds in just 21 minutes of action. Justin Ward and Troy Saxton chipped in nine points apiece.

The Railsplitters return to action on Tuesday, November 22 when they head to Jefferson City, Tenn. and Holt Fieldhouse to face the Carson-Newman Eagles in the South Atlantic Conference opener. That game is scheduled to tip off at 8 p.m.

Choice breaks career three-point record as Railsplitters defeat Kentucky Wesleyan 88-72

Redshirt senior guard Luquon Choice of Laurens, S.C., scored a game-high 28 points as the No. 2 nationally-ranked Railsplitters dominated the second half to capture an 88-72 win over the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers on Friday evening at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind. Friday night's contest was the first of two games for Lincoln Memorial in the inaugural Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic. After a sluggish first half of action, Lincoln Memorial found itself trailing 35-33. However, the Railsplitters used a couple of second-half runs to outscore the Panthers by 18 points over the final 20 minutes and improve to 3-0 for the seventh time over the past eight seasons. "It was rocky early," said LMU coach Josh Schertz. "They came out and really trapped and pressed a lot more than they had in their first two games. They really scrambled the game up. I thought we looked slow and had trouble getting to spots. "We simplified things at halftime in terms of what we were doing against the press. We were able to attack it better and that got them out of the press. That got the game into a man-on-man deal where we were able to get the game more to our liking from a tempo standpoint."

LMU Athletics Photo