The Franciscan University Barons Basketball team lost its season opener 94-46 to the Bethany College Bison, the 26th ranked team in the nation. The game got even tougher in the first half when the team's only senior, Frank Murray, was lost for the game with a left knee injury.

Despite being down a leader and playing a top ranked team, the young Baron squad showed glimpses of promise, particularly in the first half.

"There were real spurts of positive play from us tonight," Head Coach John Lamanna, said. "We're a young team and we will have our highs and our lows."

The Barons had a promising first half shooting 42.9 percent from the field including a perfect five for five from the free throw stripe. FUS went into the half down 44-31. At the halftime break, the Barons stumbled, shooting only 23.1 percent from the field and allowing Bethany 50 percent shooting from behind the 3-point line.

While shooting was a problem for Franciscan, Lamanna said that the team's main focus should be improving its efforts on the glass.

"We need to work on rebounding," Lamanna said. "We we're not able to give ourselves any second chance points on offense."

The leading scorers for the Barons were freshman guards Tim Schenk and Christian Duke who each scored 10 points. Big man Joe Rine posted a well-rounded stat sheet with 7 points, 5 assists, and 5 blocks.

"We got a lot of defensive stops and shared the ball well," Lamanna said. "Overall, we need to build off the positives and make adjustments to things we didn't do as well."

The Barons look to bounce back on the road on Saturday, November 17 when they play the University of Massachusetts Boston at 2 pm in the inaugural Hoopsville Invitational Classic in Maryland.