Montgomery, Ala. – The College of Coastal Georgia men's basketball game opened its final road trip of the regular season with a 72-65 loss at Faulkner Thursday night in Southern States Athletic Conference action.

The Mariners are set to close out the season schedule Saturday at Auburn-Montgomery before coming back here next week for the league tournament.

Coastal Georgia (10-19 overall, 6-11 SSAC) lost both meetings with the Eagles this season, also falling 83-70 to Faulkner (16-13, 10-7) in late January in Brunswick in the first matchup between the teams.

Coastal Georgia led Thursday's game 37-30 at halftime, but couldn't hang on for the win.

The Eagles used a 12-0 run early in the second half to erase their deficit and pull ahead 53-42 with 12:56 to play.

The Mariners would never get closer than six points the rest of the way. Faulkner would again build a double-digit lead before the Mariners whittled their deficit to the final margin.

For the game, Dominic Early led all scorers with 24 points and 10 rebounds for the Mariners. Corey Harris added 14 points. Hunter DeRuiter added eight points off the bench.

Coastal Georgia shot 35.7 percent (20-56) from the field and committed 19 turnovers.

The Eagles got 21 points from Di'mar Hill and 19 from Nick Drake in the winning effort. Monta Sanford had a double-double for Faulkner as he finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds.