HELENA, Mont. - The No. 16 Lewis-Clark State College men's basketball team dropped the opening game of their weekend road trip to No. 4 Carroll College on Thursday, falling to the Fighting Saints 85-69.

"Carroll is a great team both offensively and defensively and they gave us fits all night," coach Austin Johnson said. "They showed why they are in first place in conference and ranked so high nationally."

Trystan Bradley drew first blood for LC, knotting the game at two each in the first minute. Cordel Hankerson followed shortly after with a 3 to keep the momentum going for the Warriors. Derrick White dropped in a layup at 16:38 to even the score 9-9 before Race Martin gave the Warriors an 11-9 lead 30 seconds later.

Martin hit a 3-pointer at 14:48 to put LC up 14-12, but the Saints fought back to regain the lead.

The Saints shot the lights out from beyond the arc in the first half, making 10 3-pointers to take a 48-36 advantage into the locker room.

Damek Mitchell put up four points in the span of one minute, hitting a free throw and a 3-pointer as part of a seven-point run cut the deficit to 53-47 at 16:48. Back-to-back buckets from Martin and Hankerson brought LC within three at 54-51 with 15:17 on the clock before Martin added another a minute later to put LC down by one.

An 18-3 run put the Saints up 69-57 with eight minute to go and Carroll maintained a strong lead for the remainder of the game.

Carroll took the contest by a final of 85-69.

Martin led the Warriors with 17 points on 6-for-8 shooting. Bradley added 14 with a perfect 5-for-5 night from the field. Mitchell dished out a team-high seven assists to go with nine points. Both he and David Shedrick grabbed five boards to lead LC.

"We will need to be much better defensively and take better care of the basketball if we want to compete against a very good Rocky Mountain team on Saturday," Johnson said."

The Warriors now sit at an overall record of 16-5, 5-4 in Frontier play. They face Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Mont. on Saturday at 4 p.m. PST.