The Park University men’s basketball team’s five-game winning streak came to end with a 65-62 loss against Clarke University at Breckon Sports Center on Jan. 23.

Clarke opened the game with a 14-5 run before Park Head Coach Jason Kline was forced to use his second timeout. After the timeout, the tables turned and Park ended the first half on a 27-12 run to take a 32-26 lead into halftime.

After a rough first half, where Park turned the ball over 12 times, both teams tightened up for the second half. The visitors regained the lead midway through the second half, despite Park turning the ball over only three more times. Park attempted to come back but the effort fell short as the Pirates’ potential game-tying three-pointer in the final seconds was a miss.

This is just Park’s second loss in the last 10 games, bringing their record to 9-5. Park currently sits second in the Southern division of the Heart of America Conference, half a game back from Benedictine College. The Clarke Pride improve to 8-7 on the season and sit in second place of the Northern division of the Heart of America Conference.

The Pirates currently hold the third-place spot in the overall conference standings, with four games remaining before the conference tournament at the end of February.

While turnovers were a problem, Park’s greatest regret of this game will be their foul troubles. They committed 22 personal fouls and gave Clarke 26 free throw attempts. Both teams were poor from the free-throw line, as Park shot 50 percent while Clarke shot about 54 percent, which ended up favoring the Pride with four more makes from the line.

Clarke guard, Keith Johnson, led the Pride with 23 points and shot 8-18 from the field. Another Clarke guard, Jordan Lake, scored 19 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and went 7-10 from the field. Clarke center Josh Meier was the only one to get a double-double, tallying 13 points and 10 rebounds for the visitors.

With some foul trouble, Park’s bench helped out quite a bit. The Pirates had 17 bench points, including 14 from freshman guard DeMarcus Hudson. Park’s leading scorer was senior guard Rodrigue Marthone, who shot 50 percent from the field and scored 15 points. Senior forward Ernest Myles III scored eight points and grabbed 14 rebounds, but went 0-4 from the free-throw line.

Park men’s basketball will look to return to its winning ways against Evangel University at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 27 at Breckon Sports Center.