The Sierra College men’s basketball team had a competitive first half against Folsom Lake on Wednesday as despite trailing for the first few minutes, they took the lead midway through the first half and only trailed 41-33 at the break. 

The Wolverines struggled offensively to start the second half and only scored four points in the first 10 minutes as the Falcons went on a 19-4 run. Sierra got a lot of good looks, but were unable to get their shots to fall as they lost 79-52 to drop to 5-15 on the season.

“They defended us well… it was a double whammy because they played great defense and we shot crappy,” Wolverines coach John Fusano said. “We played really, really bad on defense. Offense wasn’t the disappointing part and I’d give their defense more credit. On our defense, we have held teams and we’ve been first, second or third in the league in points allowed. We always have trouble scoring, but our defense was really, really bad.”

Folsom Lake got a lot of shots to go down and beat Sierra in half court offense while grabbing a lot of offensive rebounds. For Sierra, sophomore and Woodcreek alumnus Nicholas Stultz led with 16 points while Pedro Leme went four for six with eight points. The Wolverines are a young team with only five sophomores and 10 freshmen.

“We have improved on running a really detailed offense, but tonight we were not there and they were,” Fusano said. “They came ready to go so credit to them.”

Sierra will attempt to get back in the win column on Friday night against Modesto. They will then hit the road to face American River on Tuesday followed by Cosumnes River on Feb. 2.