After battling close for the first half, the Troy Trojans boys’ basketball team was outscored by eight points in the third quarter, and could never recover in a 65-51 loss at Piqua on Friday night.

With the loss, the Trojans drop to 4-10 overall losing their fourth straight game. They are also 1-4 in the GWOC North Division.

It was an evenly played first quarter, as Troy led 13-11 after eight minutes. Piqua standout Colton Bachman scored all eight of Piqua’s points early, as they built an 8-4 lead, but the Trojans fought back behind a layup from Mechia Linton, and five points from Keenan Kinnel, to give the Trojans an 11-10 lead. Romello Yaqub hit a 10-footer at the buzzer to send Troy into the lead after the opening quarter.

Troy took their largest lead of the game early in the second when Austin Funderburg hit a short jumper, but the Indians then took over.

Piqua went on a 13-0 run over the next four minutes to turn a three point deficit into a 24-15 lead with 4:08 left in the half. Back to back three’s from Bradley Hohlbein and Ben Schmiesing led the charge, before Funderburg broke the Troy drought with an offensive rebound.

The Trojans then used a three from Kinnel and 15-footer from Yaqub with 12 seconds left to close the Troy deficit to one, but Bachman buried a three in the closing seconds to give Piqua a 27-23 halftime lead.

The threes’ were raining in the third quarter, as five of them were hit in the first five minutes of the second half. Derick Gullett and Bachman hit consecutive trey’s to push the Piqua lead out to ten, but Kinnel answered for the Trojans.

Piqua maintained their double figure lead through the third period, before Ryan McClurg hit a three to open the fourth to cut the Piqua lead to nine. But from there, Piqua outscored Troy 15-10 to get the victory.

Bachman led Piqua with 22, while for Troy, they were led in scoring by Yaqub and Kinnel each with 13.

*Also earlier in the week, the Trojans fell short to Beavercreek 65-61.

Yaqub put on an offensive show for the Trojans, as he scored a game high 29 points, followed by Funderburg with nine, Estevan Stafford added seven, Trey Bucio and McClurg each added five.

Troy hosted Springboro last night, and will host Greenville on Friday night before Miami East comes to town Saturday night. All games will begin at 7:30.