Despite playing a tight Saturday afternoon game, the second-seeded New Franklin Bulldogs couldn’t hold off a late scoring surge from fourth-seeded Christian Fellowship in the final four minutes of the third-place game, falling 54-49 to finish fourth in their own tournament.

The Knights scored 12 points in the final 3:40 to secure the win. This year marks Christian Fellowship’s first entry in this tournament and its first year as a member of the Missouri State High School Activities Association.

New Franklin’s Jonah Bishop gave his team a one-point lead on a 3-point shot with 4:33 left to play. But it would turn out to be the Bulldogs’ final field of the night. They would only score from the line for the final three minutes and 50 seconds, during which time they converted just four of 10 free-throw chances amid a poor night from the foul line.

“It just wasn’t our best,” said New Franklin coach Cory Nicholson. “Defensively, we need to rebound a little better than we did. Offensively, we just have to be smarter and take better shots. We just can’t let those easy buckets get away from us.”

New Franklin played a fairly balanced first half, scoring 14 points while surrendering 18 in a back-and-forth opening quarter. The Bulldogs cut the lead to two points, 26-24, at halftime. Sophomore Noah Hackman scored eight of his 12 points in the first two quarters, and Bishop sank two 3-pointers in the first 16 minutes.

While senior Caden Schlotzhauer had a quiet first half as a target of the Knights’ defense, he scored 13 of his team-high 17 points in the second half to keep New Franklin in the game.

The Bulldogs outscored CFS 12-10 in the third quarter to tie the game at 36-36. But the final four minutes of the night decided the game in favor of the Knights.

“They’re definitely a good team,” Nicholson said. “They’ve got some athletes who make it tough to guard, and they have some shooters around them. It was a tough matchup for us on the defensive end for sure.”

Schlotzhauer’s 17 points paced the Bulldogs, followed by 12 points from Noah Hackman and nine from Bishop, all from the arc. Senior Lane Hackman added six points, followed by senior Landon Shaw with five.

The Bulldogs struggled from the line all night, sinking just 11 of 20 free-throw attempts.

The Knights finished with three players in double figures, led by Jake Davis’s 17 points. Evan Aslandis added 13 points, followed by Brett Conklin with 11 points, nine of which came from 3-point distance. As a team, Christian Fellowship converted five of 10 chances from the free-throw line, sinking three of six in the final 43.7 seconds.

The loss was New Franklin’s second of the tournament after falling in the semifinals to an incredibly athletic Brunswick team 76-56. Despite the uneven score, the game was an exciting highlight of the tournament, with most of the separation not occurring until the fourth quarter. The loss eliminated New Franklin from its title defense from a year ago.

“Coming off a high, when you play a team like Brunswick that’s really, really good, letting this slip away from you sucks,” Nicholson said. “And playing in a game that’s not the championship factors into it, too.”

Despite back-to-back losses in last week’s tournament, the result hardly defines New Franklin’s season. Entering the tournament, the Bulldogs had only one loss against eight wins after a strong start to the season. That one loss was at the hands of Westran in the championship game of the Glasgow Tournament in early December. Had New Franklin won its semifinal game, it would have faced the top-seeded Hornets again for a tournament title.

Westran, ranked ninth in Class 2, went on to defeat Brunswick, ranked second in Class 1, for its second New Franklin Tournament championship in three seasons.

The Bulldogs don’t get much of a break after the grueling tournament week. They were set to host Glasgow in a conference matchup on Tuesday after the Advertiser went to press to take on a hot-shooting Yellowjackets team fresh off a championship at the Salisbury Tournament on Saturday. Glasgow is currently 8-2 overall and is a favorite to win the Central Activities Conference.

“It does not get any easier. We just have to bounce back and start a new week and try to get back to our winning ways,” Nicholson said.

New Franklin won the first game between the two teams in an exciting double-overtime semifinal in the Glasgow Tournament in early December.

On Friday, New Franklin travels to Community for the second of three straight CAC games.