ALLIANCE, OHIO -- Trine University senior men's basketball player Myles Copeland (Perrysburg, Ohio/Toledo St. John's) became the 45th player in program history to reach 1,000 career points despite an 89-73 loss to Thomas More (Ky.) College in the its final game of the Mount Union Holiday Classic in Alliance, Ohio.
Copeland scored 12 points against the Saints and brought his career point total to 1,007 which puts him 43rd on the all-time scoring list.
Junior Maurice Hunter (Monroe, Mich./Monroe) led the team in scoring with 18 points on nine-of-11 shooting (81.8 percent). Senior Pete Smith (Bristol, Ind./Northridge) rounded out the top scorers with 16 points and also had a team-high five assists.
Trine (7-4) led by as many as five points on two occasions early in the first half that included a 9-4 margin following a layup by Hunter at the 17:10 mark. Thomas More (9-7) then went on an 8-0 scoring run to take the lead, 12-9, with 14:13 left in the half.
The Thunder led by a point late in the period thanks to a jumper by Copeland with 7:34 remaing when the Saints took the lead back for good by outscoring Trine, 12-2, to go up by nine points, 32-23, with about four-and-a-half minutes left.
Thomas More continued to pull away to end the half as the Trine offense went scoreless in the final 3:58 which allowed the Saints to pad its lead to 21 points at the break, 46-25.
The second half saw Trine outscore Thomas More, 48-43, but the earlier deficit would be too much to overcome. The Saints recorded their largest lead of the game of 26 points, 63-37, at the 14:18 mark.
Trine got to within 16 points several times during the remainder of the game, but that's as close as the Thunder would get as Thomas More went on to post the 89-73 final.
Trine will return home to host its next two games, beginning with a Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association matchup against Hope (Mich.) College on Thursday, Jan. 3 at the MTI Center. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.