Montreat's men's basketball team is very young, with juniors and sophomores dominating the playing time and absorbing the pressure of a tough year.  And while getting battle-tested during the 2009-2010 season may ready Head Coach Jonathan Bennett's charges for brighter times ahead, the Cavaliers have had to bear up during a difficult stretch. 

Bennett's youthful squad dropped to 3-24 on the year when they fell on the road to league foe Bryan College on Saturday, February 13, 70-60, in another game that the Cavs led at times and during which they showed signs of the maturity and completeness needed to win.

But for now, the Cavaliers will have to be content learning how to win in the future as the Lions closed with a strong late run to pull away in a tight game.  Bennett appreciated his team's spirit: "I felt like we matched their intensity and played really hard tonight from start to finish.  They had a couple bench players that made two big three point shots late in the second half to give them the advantage and we were unable to recover from those shots."

The Lions' poetically-named Astral Guerrier, a junior power forward, scored 23 points and hauled in 7 rebounds for Bryan, who sit in second in the Appalachian Athletic Conference with a fine 10-4 record (and are 17-8 overall). 

Matt Rushing led the Cavs with 20 points and received able support from Vince Dombrowski and Dustin Harris, who each scored 13.  Proof that future editions of the Cavaliers team may just learn how to close out games after weathering this year is here: Rushing is a junior, Dombrowski and Harris are sophomores, and Travis Williams, who dished out 8 assists for Montreat, is a promising freshman.

But that's a metaphorical tomorrow.  In the literal tomorrow, Wednesday, February 17, the Cavaliers travel to Union College to play the Bulldogs, who carry a 9-5 conference record and 16-12 overall mark into the contest.