Concordia fell short of a comeback against Shorter College 69-60 on Saturday night.

The Hornets overcame a large early deficit to make the game interesting, but the early hole proved to be too much.

“I’m really excited to get out of here with a win,” said Shorter coach Chad Warner. “I feel like we did a great job starting, but they responded well.”

The Hawks jumped to a 21-4 first half lead behind a 6-0 run to start the game and a 14-0 run sparked by four consecutive 3-pointers by Tomas Pranclyauskis.

“Anytime you start off well on the road, it’s important,” said Warner. “It was huge. It was a great confidence builder.”

The Hawk defense played a large role as well, keeping the Hornets off the scoreboard for more than eight minutes before a Sherman Black layup ended the drought at the 9:03 mark to cut the deficit to 21-6.

Black’s layup started a 10-5 run that closed the gap to 26-15 before the half ended

John Nixon hit two 3-pointers early in the second half to cut the Hornets’ deficit to 30-25. The Hawks extended the lead back to 9 on two Fred Christopher free throws, starting a 6-0 run to make the score 50-38.

The Hornets made it close one more time as a Nixon 3 sparked a 7-0 run to close the gap to 5 with 5 1/2 minutes remaining, but they would get no closer the rest of the way.

“Overall, I’m proud of these boys,” said Concordia coach Shepherd Skanes. “I’m proud of the way they fought back and made it respectful. They didn’t give up.”

Nixon led the Hornets with 15 points, and Zach Williams and Demetrius Fleetion added 13 and 12, respectively.

Pranclyauskis led the Hawks with 22, and Christopher added 15.