BEAVER FALLS, Pa. – The Geneva College men's basketball team had a tough season opener on Friday night on the opening day of the Coaches vs Cancer Classic, unable to keep pace with Lancaster Bible in an 88-62 loss to the Chargers.  The Golden Tornadoes will try to rebound tomorrow afternoon on the second day of the classic.

Senior Alec Srock scored on an offensive rebound for the first points of the season after the Chargers opened the game with a bucket, but Lancaster Bible surged ahead 15-5 over the first six minutes of the game.

A layup and a three-pointer from sophomore Tommy Coletti began a quick response from the Golden Tornadoes, and three minutes later a three-pointer from freshman Tayt Lucas pulled Geneva within 21-19 with eight minutes remaining in the half.

Unfortunately, that was as close as the Golden Tornadoes could get, as the Lancaster Bible full-court pressure forced Geneva into several turnovers that led to easy buckets for the Chargers, and by the time halftime hit, Lancaster Bible led 43-30.

The Chargers took full control of the game early in the second half, opening the final 20 minutes on a 15-3 run to grab a 58-33 edge eight minutes into the half, as the Geneva offense struggled to generate much offensively against the Charger pressure.

Senior Jonathan Bertovich did give Geneva a spark offensively over the final ten minutes, reaching double figures, but it wasn't enough to make much of a dent in the deficit before Lancaster Bible closed the game out, 88-62.

Coletti was the main offensive force for Geneva in the contest, finishing with a career-high 20 points in the first game of his sophomore campaign, on 7-of-9 shooting from the floor, including a 2-of-3 effort from long range.  Bertovich was the only other Golden Tornado in double figures, finishing with 11 points, including three three-pointers.  Coletti, Srock and senior Trey Barker led the team with five rebounds each.

The Golden Tornadoes finished the game shooting 22-of-60 (36.7%) from the floor, just 6-of-27 (22.2%) from three-point range, while committing 24 turnovers.

Lancaster Bible finished with three players in double figures, led by Connor Storr's 18 points.  The Chargers shot 34-of-69 (49.3%) from the floor and finished with just 13 turnovers.

"I was really disappointed with our effort tonight," said Head Coach Jeff Santarsiero.  "Lancaster Bible is a very good team, and they can do this to teams if you can't handle their pressure.  But we did just about everything poorly tonight, and we are never going to have success if we can't give better effort than we did tonight."

The men will have a chance to rebound quickly when they wrap up play their weekend play tomorrow.  Geneva hosts Carlow at 12:00 p.m. inside Metheny Fieldhouse on the final day of the classic.