Ashland, Ore. | A five game win-streak was put to an end Friday night for the Warner Pacific University Men's Basketball team (14-13, 10-9), who dropped tonight's contest against the Southern Oregon University Raiders (15-12, 12-7) by a final score of 54-60 at Lithia Motors Pavilion.
 
After five straight conference contests of high-octane offensive output by the Warner Pacific Knights, the speed of their coast-to-coast conversions finally caught up with them, as WPU shot just 36.4% from the field for the evening, including just 24.0% from behind the three-point line.
 
Additionally, Warner Pacific has seen a copious amount of success from second-chance opportunities and points in the paint in their win-streak. However, the Knights managed just seven points off of bonus opportunities, along with only 28 points within the key compared to Southern Oregon's 44 points in tonight's contest.
 
The first half kicked off in typical Cascade Collegiate Conference fashion, with both teams trading leads by going basket for basket, regardless of the two teams competing in such a deep and competitive field. The WPU and SOU matchup is the first of the year due to their first contest in Portland being forfeited for Covid-19 protocols, so both sets of players and coaches were tentative to stray from their game plans early, choosing to set up the offensive on nearly every possession of the first half.
 
Midway through the first half, Knights' sophomore guard Tyrese Yussuf-Willis scored on an acrobatic layup to put Warner Pacific up five points at 18-13, but this would unfortunately be the largest lead of the evening for WPU. The Knights would relinquish their early lead with 3:45 left on the clock in the first half, and be forced to play the catch-up game for the remainder of the contest.
 
After trailing at the halftime break by five points, Warner Pacific needed to find their identity once again, putting up just 22 points in the first 20 minutes of action. The same could be said for Southern Oregon, who scored just 27 points in the same amount of time, with neither team having a double-digit scorer at the half.
 
The Knights crawled their way back into a narrow one-point lead with under ten minutes of play remaining, but lost the lead on the subsequent possession by SOU, which would turn out to be the final lead change of the evening.
 
The closest Warner Pacific would find themselves again to possibly stealing a game in Ashland was with 28 seconds and 20 seconds remaining, when senior forward Darius Traylor hit an and-1 layup to pull to within two points, then a mirror image recreation was made on a deep three-point shot off the backboard from senior Isaac Etter to also pull within two points.
 
Despite the late game heroics, the only reason Etter's mind-blowing three-pointer was to once again pull to within two points was because Southern Oregon converted time and time again on their end of the floor, proving to be just too large of a hole for the Knights to dig themselves out of, falling to the Raiders after failed foul and free-throw attempts, 54-60.
 
Yussuf-Willis continues to push the gas pedal to the floor for WPU, scoring a team-high 13 points with six rebounds and a pair of assists in a complete game effort for the sophomore from Burbank, Calif. Etter finished the evening with 11 points and four rebounds, while senior forward Miles Brown added 10 points and a season-high four blocks underneath the basket.
 
Southern Oregon guard K'wan Carter led all scorers with 18 points, adding four rebounds and a pair of steals along the way. Forward Josh Meyer tore a hole in the Knights' interior defense, scorching the Knights for 17 points and 13 rebounds for the only double-double of the game.
 
Warner Pacific Men's Basketball returns to the hardwood tomorrow evening at approximately 5pm PDT, following the conclusion of the WPU vs OIT women's basketball game, when they play the Oregon Tech Hustlin' Owls in Klamath Falls for the Knights' final road game of the regular season.