The Dominican University men's basketball team fell to 0-3 on the season and 0-2 in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC), dropping a shootout with the Rockford University Regents 109-103 on Saturday afternoon in the Igini Sports Forum.
 
Josh Mayberry (Canton, Mich.) scored a game-high 35 points on 12-for-15 shooting in the losing effort for the Stars.  Mayberry went 4-for-5 from behind the three-point stripe and 7-for-9 at the foul line while adding seven assists in 34 minutes of work.
 
The Stars raced out to a 41-24 lead with 10:06 to play in the first half, connecting on 16 of their first 18 shots.
 
Rockford then answered with a 15-4 run over the next three and a half minutes to cut the Stars lead to 45-39 with 6:30 to play in the half.
 
Rockford continued to cut into the Dominican lead, eventually evening the score at 58-58 on a rebound and put-back by Kenny Parks before Dominican's Jolly Grewal (Troy, Mich.) capped the first half scoring when he tipped in Rich Bodee's miss with 1:04 remaining in the half.
 
The Stars, leading 60-58 at the break, shot 70-percent from the field (21-for-30) in the first half with Mayberry scoring 27 first-half points and Bodee adding ten on 4-for-5 shooting from the field, including 2-for-2 from three-point range.
 
Bodee opened the second half with a quick three on the Stars first possession before the Regents scored the next six, capped by a lay-in by Trae Blumhorst in transition to put the Regents ahead 66-63 with 17:40 to play.
 
The teams traded leads over the next two minutes before Rockford used a 9-0 run that spanned a minute and 46 seconds to open an eight-point, 75-67, lead with 14:15 to play.
 
The Regents added to their lead, leading by as many as 15 in the second half before the Stars made another run.
 
Bodee capped a 14-3 run for Dominican with a corner three with 2:29 to play to pull the Stars within three at 102-99.  However, the bucket was the final field goal for Dominican who went 0-for-4 over the final 1:37 while the Regents scored seven points, going 3-for-4 at the foul line to close out the win.

"If you like offense, it was a fun game to watch," commented Mark White, the Stars' head coach. "If you like defense--not so much."

"Winning teams do both.  We clearly didn't expend the necessary effort on the defensive end of the floor. That is going to have to change if we want to have a successful season."
 
Mayberry's 35 points was one of the career-high for the junior guard who had 36 points as a freshman in a 92-83 loss for the Stars at Rockford.
 
Bodee added 23 in the losing effort, going 7-for-12 from the field, including 5-for-7 from three, while Tim Robertson (Chicago, Ill.) added 15, scoring 12 in the second half, to round in three in double-figures for the Stars.
 
Zach Wallace paced Rockford with 34 points, going 14-for-15 from the field, while Michael Murray added 23 points and ten rebounds for a double-double.
 
The Stars will return to action next Saturday, December 5, playing host the Concordia University Wisconsin Falcons for a 2:00 p.m. game in the Igini Sports Forum.