The Morgan Academy Senators were within reach at halftime, but could not overcome turnovers in the second half, as they fell 65-48 to the Hooper Academy Colts in the Morgan Pepsi Classic Tournament title game on Thursday.

Senators’ head basketball coach Bob Taylor said Morgan (6-5) played a solid first half, but made too many mistakes the rest of the way.

“We went into half down six and we played really good defense and really well offensively,” Taylor said. “Third quarter, we went on a little run, had too many turnovers and Hooper capitalized and played good basketball. Generally, you turn the ball over and it’s going to lead to points for the other team, and that’s what happened tonight.”

Morgan only trailed 29-23 at the half, but Hooper outscored the Senators 26-11 in the third quarter.

Morgan tried to fight back, as it went on a 12-0 run that included six points from Grey Cothran to make the score 57-46 with 2:33 left to play.

The Senators, however, couldn’t overcome turnovers, the clock or stop the Colts from scoring.

Hunter Rogers led the Senators with 16 points and 11 rebounds, while Cothran added 8 points and Dalton Lee and Connor Henderson added 10 and 9 points respectively.

Darius Bennett led Hooper with 25 points and was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Rogers and Henderson were named to the all-tournament team.

Taylor said he saw a lot of improvement from his team in the two-day tournament.

“Defensively, I thought we played real well,” Taylor said. “I think we’re getting better. I see a lot of other players getting better. We’re playing real well. We got three games next week to get us started. I think this (the tournament) kind of jump starts us into getting going for the next couple weeks.”