WINONA LAKE - Grace College opened its men's basketball season with a blast on Tuesday night - the IU Northwest Blast.

The Lancers opened a season of question marks with an exclamation point in a 111-39 win that just fell short of setting a number of team records.

The 72-point win was just seven short of the school record, and it was the largest victory since a 129-51 victory over Indiana-South Bend in 1973. The 39 points allowed fell just four points short of the best defensive game for Grace, and head coach Jim Kessler picked up win No. 398 in his 21-year career as coach of the Lancers.

And all of this came in a season in which nobody knows what to expect from this team. Last year's top two players, Darren Gagnon and Bert McLaughlin, both graduated along with numerous other players that started or got plenty of playing time. However, one key player returned, Andy Schmidt.

Schmidt has been All-Mid-Central Conference honorable mention the past three years and is the only starter who has played four years at Grace. Starting guard James Joiner is the only other senior on the squad and those two will provide the leadership Kessler needs for his young team, a team he hopes will buy into not worrying who starts.

"Part of this is great leadership from Schmidt and Joiner," Kessler said. "(The players) will sub themselves. I don't know when they're tired. They know. If they wait until they're tired, it's too late. We've had to pace ourselves for several years. We really don't have to this year. I can't think of anyone who really cares (about starting). They know they're going to play and we'll try to find out who's playing well on any given night and leave them on the court."

Grace opened the game with a 15-point run to blow out the Blast early. The Lancers extended that to 54-13 at the half and continued to pull further away in the second half.

Sophomore Caleb Gilmer led Grace with 18 points, while Schmidt and junior Brian Gornik added 14 each. The Lancers knocked down nine three-pointers in an up-tempo pressing style of play.

"The only goal I made for these young fellows is to play as hard as they can play every time they cross the line," Kessler said. "If you go into the lockerroom, you'll see a sign above the door that says, 'Cross the line' and there's a black line there. We've got a young team, they like each other, and they play hard together. To come back out in the second half and still have the intensity we had, that hasn't always been the case with some teams. This group really likes to play."

Kessler said that this team will press much more than they have in recent years.

"We only pressed for 10 minutes," Kessler said. "We will use a full-court man the entire year. We're committed to doing that. At this juncture, we are intending to press the entire game, the entire year. We feel that our strength is in our depth. We're going to try to make up for a lack of experience. I know we can play 10 deep, and it doesn't make a hill of beans worth of difference. They will sub themselves. I don't know when they're tired. They know."

Grace (1-0) will head to New York for the Roberts Wesleyan Tournament over the weekend in what will be the first true test for the Lancers.

"We open with Geneva," Kessler said. "They're waiting for us. We knocked them out of the national rankings last year when we beat them over Thanksgiving. They had a real good year and had a shot at the national tournament. They basically have that whole team back and they had somebody here to watch the game. So, they're concerned about it." [[In-content Ad]]