News Release

MANCHESTER, Ind. — Saturday night in Manchester, the barns were all ablaze. In a game that redefined barn-burner, Rockford College emerged victorious over Bethel University with a 96-95 result in double overtime. The Regents had three scorers with over twenty points, and the Royals had five in double-digit scoring. As the Regents-Royal battle began, the Regents went on a 10-point scoring run in reply to Bethel’s first layup before Bethel finally answered back. The Regents kept that lead the entire first half, leading by as many as 13 points.
Starting in the second half, the Regents increased their lead to as high as 17 before the Royals responded with their own unanswered 8-point scoring run to begin to close the gap. With the clock at 10:42 in the second half, the Royals had hope again as they tied up the game on a 3-point field goal. The Royals soon took the lead, but there would be no more than four points difference between the Royals and the Regents for the rest of the game as the lead switched hands more than a dozen times. At the end of regulation, the score was tied for the seventh time in the game, this time at 80. By the end of the first back-and-forth overtime, the score was still tied. With a 90-90 score on the board, the second overtime began. The Regents took the lead and were able to hold it through almost the entire period in order to end the game 96-95.
Leading scorers for the Regents were Maurice Smith with 33 points and 4 rebounds; Mitch McCracken with 27 points, 7 rebounds and 6 steals; and Jacob Dunkel with 21 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocks. When Coach Ryan Rebsom tabs his new players to make “an immediate impact,” he isn’t kidding. Dunkel is a new face as a freshman, and McCracken comes to the Regents from Kishwaukee Community College.