ANDERSON, Ind. – A spot in the 2025 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) championship game was up for grabs on Friday (Feb. 28) night, with second-seeded Franklin and third-seeded Rose-Hulman meeting in a conference tournament semifinal matchup.
 
Playing in front of a loud and pro-Grizzly crowd, Franklin (20-7) got a team-high 19 points from senior Braden Flanagan and knocked off the Engineers (17-10) 66-63 to advance to the conference championship game on Saturday (Mar. 1) night.
 
How it Happened
The two sides played a back-and-forth and evenly contested first half that saw five ties and seven lead changes. A Dylan Beverly layup with 5:24 to go in the half put Franklin up 24-19 in what would be the biggest lead of the opening 20 minutes. A buzzer-beating jumper from Lynn King sent the teams into the break locked in a 31-31 tie.
 
Five straight Engineer points opened the second half and gave Rose their largest lead of the night at 36-31 but Franklin bounced back and jumped in front with a layup from Jessie Morgan III to make it 40-39 with 15:50 to play. That proved to be a lead the Grizzlies would hang on to for the rest of the night, but the Engineers refused to go away quietly.
 
Franklin took their biggest lead of the game with two Cody Samples free throws to make it 61-55 with 56 seconds to go. But the Engineers kept it tight in the final seconds and trailed 64-63 when Joey Schmitz banked in a desperation three with eight seconds to play. Flanagan sank two free throws at the other end and Franklin's spot in the title game was sealed when Schmitz' game-tying three at the horn was off the mark.
 
Inside the Box Score
- Flanagan went 5-for-8 from the floor and 6-for-6 from the line while knocking down a team-high three triples.
-Cody Samples added 13 points and had a team-high three steals.
-Lynn King finished with 11 points and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
-Franklin shot 41.2% (21-for-51) from the floor and held Rose to 44% (22-for-50) shooting.
-Free throws proved critical in the outcome, with Franklin going 19-for-26 at the line compared to 10-for-22 for the Engineers.
-With the win, Franklin reaches the 20-win milestone for the first time since the 2005-06 campaign.
-The Grizzlies advance to the conference title game for the first time since 2022, when they advanced as the #6 seed and beat #1 seed Hanover 91-84.
 
Up Next
Franklin will face off with top-seeded and tournament host Anderson for a spot in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night. Tip-off from O.C. Lewis Gymnasium is set for 5:00 p.m.