Cold Shooting Tars Drop Opener.

The Rollins College Tars could not shake a poor shooting performance on Friday night at Warden Arena and fell to Warner University 58-50. Perhaps it was the fact that it was the Tars first game of the year and the sixth for the Royals. With the win the Royals improved to 5-1. The Tars fell to 0-1 with the loss.
  Three players scored in double figures for the Royals. Chiverton Halstead paced Warner with 14 points on the evening, while Bryce Kachinski and Ray Victor had 10 points each. Brian St.Fort had a big game as well. He scored nine points, grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked four shots.
  The lone Tar in double figures was Dave Diakite who tallied 13 points on the evening. Kyle McClanahan added nine points, six rebounds three assists and four steals. Brett Chance also chipped in nine points for the hosts.
  The game started as a see-saw affair. Neither team led by more than five in the game's first 15 minutes. With 7:11 left it would be 19-14 Tars after a Dave Diakite slam.
  Warner would then reel off the next 16 points and take a 30-19 lead after a Halstead 3-pointer. The Tars would answer and score the last seven points of the half to cut the lead to 30-26.
  The Tars would look to be in control in the second half and took a 46-40 lead on a put back by Lukas Winegarner to stretch the lead to six (46-40) with just over seven minutes left.  The Tars would not score there next bucket until 2:21 remained. The 5:50 second drought saw the Tars six point lead become a four point deficit (51-47) after a 11-1 Royals run. The Royals would seal the victory making seven of eight free throws to get the 58-50 win.
  On the evening the Royals shot 33 percent to just 28 percent for the Tars. Neither team shot well from long range, Warner shot 31 percent (9-29) to the Tars 25 percent (6-24). The Royals shot 79 percent at the foul line to 63 percent for the Tars. Warner won the battle on the boards 43-39. The Tars had eight assists, while the Royals had 12. The Tars turned the ball over 15 times to the Royals 20.
  The Tars will look to bounce back Monday when they host Puerto Rico Bayamon. Tip time at Warden Arena is set for 7:30 PM. As always you can catch the action worlwide on RollinsSports.com and locally on 91.5 WPRK Winter Park.