WESTMINSTER, Md.--It was a true season opener for the Hood College men's basketball team on Friday night.

Not only was it the Blazers' first-ever game in the 110-year history of the college, but it also marked head coach Tom Dickman's collegiate coaching debut.

Playing with a squad of 12 freshmen, the Blazers were plagued with poor free-throw shooting leading to an 83-67 loss to McDaniel College in the BB&T McDaniel College Tip-Off Classic in front of 825 fans, by far the most in recent memory in the Gill Center.

"This is going to be a learning experience for us," said Dickman, who is the winningest public high school coach in the state of Maryland. "There are some things we did tonight that we'll want to do again and there's some things we did tonight that we definitely don't want to do again. We didn't shot free-throws well in the preseason … good teams make free-throws."

Hood (0-1) made just 15-of-37 free-throws (40.5 percent), hitting only six in 17 attempts in the second half, and couldn't pull closer than nine points in the second half.

Dickman brought his up-tempo game with him to Hood and although the final score may not reflect it, the Blazers controlled the flow of the game.

"I thought we did a good job controlling the pace of the game," he said. "We had the pace, the game was fast, but we got sloppy at times. You have to remember that all of our guys are 17 and 18 year olds and they're going up against 21 and 22 year olds. That can take a toll."

That toll came at the charity stripe and McDaniel (1-0) took advantage of the Blazers miscues to put them away down the stretch.

Despite the loss, the night marked a new era at Hood and a new slate of school records. Santo Provenzano made just four-of-17 free-throws but was five-of-seven from the floor for a team-high 14 points, a new school record, and David Wilson scored 11.

The Blazers made a push midway through the second half with an 11-0 run to pull within 65-56.

Provenzano tapped in a lay-in and Darnell Edmonds nailed a 3-pointer to get Hood started in the run. David Wilson hit two-of-three free throws and Eric Ansari and Wilson rained a trey each to get Hood within nine with 6:18 to go.

That, however, would be the closest Hood would get for the remainder of the contest. With the loss, Hood will take on Valley Forge Christian College in the consolation final tomorrow at 2 p.m. and McDaniel will play Eastern Mennonite at 4 p.m. in the championship game.

"I'm not discouraged at all with our play tonight," said Dickman. "I'm encouraged with what we did. We need to remedy our free-throws, but just like at TJ, we were always building for February and we'll be doing that here, too."

Alan Hoyt led the Green Terror with 21 points and 13 rebounds and D.J. Hynes had 17 points and seven boards. Dennis Tressler played well for Hood with nine points and a team-high seven rebounds.

"On this team, we play with so much heart," said Kevin Rinehart, who played for Dickman at TJ and had seven points Friday night. "We're so involved with one another and we're going to regroup from this and go out there like we can."