FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The Indiana Tech men's basketball team fell to rival Cornerstone University, 74-73, in the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) Tournament Semifinals Saturday afternoon inside the Schaefer Center.
 
The Warriors will now await their draw and opponent for the 2020 NAIA Division II National Championship on Wednesday evening after receiving the WHAC's first automatic bid to the tournament by winning the regular season title last week.
 
Mitch Morken and Cory McKinney had a team-best 18 points, with the former adding 12 rebounds for his eighth double-double of the season while the latter collected four points and four assists. Max Huber added 11 points and eight rebounds while Jeremy Luciani had 10 points, seven rebounds, two blocks and two steals off the bench.
 
In a game that featured 14 ties and 10 lead changes, the game lived up to its hype between the two conference foes in another exciting chapter to the rivalry. Cornerstone got its offense going first as they led 10-3 seven minutes into the game, but Tech battled back with a 10-3 run of their own to knot the game up at 13 with 9:52 to go in the first half. The Warriors took just their second lead of the game with 6:40 on the clock as a jumper from Morken made it an 18-16 game in favor of the Orange and Black. A 9-0 run from the hosts put them ahead 32-23 with just over two minutes to go until the half, but the Golden Eagles got into a groove late and cut the deficit down to 34-30 right before the buzzer.
 
Tech started off the second half on a 11-5 run to push their lead up to 45-35 four minutes into the period, but the double-digit advantage would last for less than a minute as the visitors got it back down to eight and used a fast-break layup from Drew Knickerbocker to spark a 13-4 run and cut the deficit down to 49-48 with 11:51 to play. The Warriors grew the lead back up to seven points three minutes later, but that would one of the last times either team led by more than one possession for the rest of the game.
 
Cornerstone went back ahead 59-57 with four minutes remaining in the contest, while the teams traded ties and leads over the remainder of the game, with four lead changes and seven ties occurring over that time span. A dunk from Lucas Lehrman made it a 70-70 game with 1:12 to play, while an and-one play from McKinney put Tech up 73-72 with 27 seconds left. Tyler Baker was fouled on a three-pointer on the Golden Eagles next possession and sank his final two free throws with 12.4 seconds on the clock to give the visitors a one-point lead. The Warriors had three chances to tie or take the lead in the final seconds of the game, but were unable to hit their last two shots and missed both of their free throw shots with 4.6 seconds left as the Golden Eagles completed their second upset of the conference tournament with the 74-73 win.
 
Tech's next game will take place March 11 or 12 at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.