Ferris lost its home finale on Saturday thus giv­ing up the oppor­tu­nity to host a game in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament.

Entering the week­end, Ferris had a one-game lead over Saginaw Valley State, but the Cardinals con­trolled the tie breaker. Ferris needed to win its final two games to host the first game in the GLIAC tour­na­ment, but failed to do so.

The Bulldogs will be look­ing to win the GLIAC tour­na­ment for only the sec­ond time in his­tory with their lone cham­pi­onship com­ing in the 1997–98 sea­son. Bulldog head coach Bill Sall knows the team has a chance to beat Saginaw Valley though it lost both regular-season meetings.

“We def­i­nitely have a team that can play with them,” said Sall. “We are more than capa­ble to go there and win.”

On Saturday against Wayne State, Ferris shot 61.3 per­cent from the field in the first half, includ­ing 6 for 8 from beyond the arc. However, Ferris held a slim three-point lead at the half as Wayne State cap­i­tal­ized on 11 points off turnovers and eight second-chance points.

In the sec­ond half, the Ferris shoot­ers cooled off but the sec­ond chance points con­tin­ued from the Warriors as the Bulldogs could not keep them off the offen­sive boards.Wayne took the lead with 9:55 left in the game and did not relin­quish from that point on as they took advan­tage of Ferris turnovers and poor free-throw shoot­ing. Sall felt his team made too many mis­takes to win as they fell 85–78.

“It makes it really hard to win when you give up 24 points off turnovers, 26 second-chance points, and shoot 5 for 15 from the free-throw line,” said Sall.

The Bulldogs took care of busi­ness on Feb. 25 as they defeated Northwood 93–74. Junior for­ward Justin Keenan had a game-high 30 points and senior guard Austin Randel had a career-high of 25 points in the blow out. As a team, Ferris shot 59.5 per­cent from the field in the first half.

“Offensively we were really good, but our key was our defen­sive stops,” said Randel.