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Lourdes men's basketball team opened the home portion of its 2015-2016 season, as well as Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference play, on Saturday evening, falling 63-54 to #1-ranked Cornerstone at Tam-o-Shanter.
 
The loss marked the first home opening setback for the Gray Wolves in program history.
 
"Cornerstone is a great team, and we didn't play hard for 40 minutes," head coach Andre Smith said afterwards.  "We had an awful start, our shooting hurt us, and we got killed on the boards.  You have to have your A game against the defending national champions if you want to knock them off and we didn't have that."
 
Lourdes missed 11 of its first 12 shots from the floor, falling behind 12-2 more than nine minutes into the contest.  The Gray Wolves would finally find the mark, but ended up connecting on just 32% of its shots in the opening 20 minutes.  They were unable to cut the deficit under six the remainder of the half, and trailed by as many as 14 before a Julian Johnson (Columbus, Ohio/Horizon H.S.) three-pointer before halftime made the margin 31-20.
 
The Gray Wolves went on a run to open the second half, closing to within four, 36-32, with just under 14 minutes to play following a basket by E.J. Blackwell (Rochester, Pa./Rochester H.S.).  Cornerstone responded with the next six points to push the lead back to double figures, and Lourdes would not get any closer than seven the rest of the game.
 
Blackwell led Lourdes with 16 points, making 7-of-8 from the free throw line, while Johnson and Anthony Swanigan (Indianapolis, Ind./Pike H.S.) added 14 points each.
 
The Gray Wolves shot just 36% from the floor, despite connecting on 6-of-13 (46.2%) from three-point range.  Lourdes committed just four turnovers.
 
Kyle Steigenga led all scorers with 19 points for Cornerstone (4-1, 1-0 WHAC) while Ben Lanning registered a double-double with 17 points and 13 boards.  The Golden Eagles outrebounded Lourdes 38-29 for the night.
 
Lourdes (3-1, 0-1) will return to the road on Wednesday evening as the Gray Wolves face Concordia (Mich.).  Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. from Cardinal Fieldhouse in Ann Arbor, Mich.