The Bulldogs suf­fered two tough losses on the road this past week­end as they lost by five points combined.

Senior guard Austin Randel said the two losses were hard to han­dle as the Bulldogs made defen­sive stops at the end of the game.

“Those two losses were def­i­nitely hard to swal­low since we put our­selves in posi­tion to win both games,” said Randel.

On Feb. 18, the Bulldogs lost a hard fought bat­tle to Saginaw Valley State, 68 — 66. The Bulldogs took a one-point lead with 1:20 remain­ing on a jump shot from junior for­ward Justin Keenan. The Cardinals cap­i­tal­ized on back-to-back pos­ses­sions to take a three-point lead with 33 sec­onds remain­ing in the con­test and held on for the victory.

Keenan led the way for the Bulldogs offen­sively as he scored a game-high 28 points to go along with 12 rebounds in the los­ing effort.

Ferris dropped another close bat­tle in its final con­test of the four-game road trip to the Lake Superior State Lakers, 69–66.

Junior for­ward Matt Dehart missed a poten­tial game-tying three-pointer from in front of the Ferris bench as time expired.

Keenan again led the Bulldogs with 24 points as Randel chipped in 13. Ferris com­mit­ted 12 turnovers and forced 15 from the Lakers.

In both games, Ferris strug­gled with shoot­ing beyond the arc as it was 3 of 20 against Lake Superior and 2 of 21 against Saginaw Valley.

“We need to put these past two games behind us, learn from our mis­takes and make sure we get wins in these last two games,” said Randel.

Following the losses, Ferris is tied with Saginaw Valley for sec­ond place in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) North Division. They are also in a three-way tie with Saginaw and Hillsdale for third place in the over­all con­fer­ence standings.

The Bulldogs have already clinched a berth in the GLIAC tour­na­ment, but their last two games remain cru­cial as they are fight­ing for home court. The top four teams in the con­fer­ence will play at home, while teams seeded five through eight will ¡play on the road.

Ferris will con­clude its reg­u­lar sea­son at home on Feb. 25 against Northwood and the sea­son finale will be on Feb. 27 where they will bat­tle against Wayne State.