File photo – CR’s Donald Willis

The College of the Redwoods men tasted defeat on the basketball court for the first time in 10 weeks on Saturday afternoon, falling 87-76 at Shasta.

The Corsairs came out flat on the defensive end and trailed by nine at halftime, and they were unable to battle their way back.

“Shasta came out with a very good approach and just had a very explosive first half on both sides of the ball,” CR head coach Ryan Bisio said. “We really sprung a leak defensively in that first half and that contributed to our demise.”

The loss ends a 12-game winning streak and drops the Corsairs to 4-1 in the Golden Valley Conference at the halfway stage, and 17-4 overall.

They remain alone atop the standings, however, with Butte also losing on Saturday, falling 72-70 at Feather River. 

Butte, Shasta and Feather River are all 2-2 in the GVC and tied for second.

Drew Gillette scored a team-high 23 points for CR, including five of his team’s 10 3-pointers, while Thomas Nelson finished with 15 points and Isaac Puzz and Donald Willis 11 each.

Team defense, however, was a problem.

“We didn’t compete in the first half in the way we are going to need to moving forward to potentially be champions of this conference,” Bisio said.

The CR men also failed to hit the 80-point mark for the first time since they last lost a game.

The Corsairs, who return home to host Lassen next Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m., still hold their destiny in their own hands.

“At the end of the day the only thing that happened is we lost a basketball game,” Bisio said. “All our dreams are still in play.”