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Complete
Box Score
EDINBORO, PA – To the 1,350 fans in
attendance at the Mercyhurst Athletic Center on Tuesday night, it
will be a game that will go down as an instant classic. A
knock-down, drag-em-out battle between two local rivals with one
loss apiece, and it goes overtime to boot.
To the Edinboro men’s basketball coach, it
will go down as one that got away. The veteran mentor watched as
his team rebounded from a double-digit second half deficit to take
a late lead, only to see Mercyhurst send it into overtime in the
final seconds. Avi Fogel took over from there, scoring 12 of
Mercyhurst’s 15 points in the extra session as the Lakers
defeated Edinboro, 76-72.
The loss drops Edinboro to 5-2, while
Mercyhurst improves to 7-1. The contest marked the third straight
game for the Boro against a one-loss team, and on Saturday,
December 10 Charleston(WV) will make it four teams in a row.
Charleston (WV) will invade McComb Fieldhouse with a 4-1 record.
Mercyhurst jumped out to a quick 11-1 lead, but
then saw Edinboro rally with a 13-2 run to take a 14-13 lead. Torry
Mitchell (Erie, PA/Central) fueled the run with nine points,
scoring his 1,000 the career points in the process on the court he
played on for two years before transferring to Edinboro. The
Lakers turned a 16-15 deficit into a 32-17 lead thanks to a 16-2
burst. Mercyhurst ended the first half with a 34-22 lead.
The second half featured several Edinboro runs,
with Mercyhurst answering and pushing the lead back to double
figures. The Lakers’ lead was ten points at 55-45 with 5:09
to play when the Fighting Scots made another run, this time
resulting in their first lead since midway through the first half.
Outscoring Mercyhurst 14-2 over the next four minutes, Edinboro
grabbed the lead on Devon Knight’s (Pittsburgh, PA/Penn
Hills) layup and free throw with 1:11 to play, 59-57.
After Mercyhurst tied it, Daren Tielsch
(McKees Rocks, PA/Montour) fed Chris Ravello (Odenton,
MD/Archbishop Spalding) for a layup with 15 seconds to play
for a 61-59 lead. Terry Smith answered with a twisting jumper in
the lane with four seconds to play and the game was headed to
overtime tied at 61-all.
The overtime featured four led changes and one
tie, but for Edinboro it was too much Fogel. The junior guard
dropped in 12 of his game-high 26 points in the overtime period,
giving Mercyhurst the lead for good on a jumper with 2:01 to play,
making it 71-70. Smith would add a free throw and then a steal and
layup to boost Edinboro’s deficit to 74-70.
A Mitchell jumper pulled Edinboro to within
two, and when Fogel missed the front end of a one-and-one with 29
seconds remaining, Edinboro had life. Following a missed shot with
nine seconds
left, Mitchell stepped out of bounds battling
for the rebound. Fogel’s two free throws with five seconds
left sealed the Mercyhurst win.
Mitchell led Edinboro with a season-high 21
points, and now has 1,018 for his four-year career as a Laker and
Fighting Scot. Justin Moore (Canonsburg, PA/Canon-McMillan)
also finished with a season-high with 17 points, making 8 of 9
field goals. Knight added 15 points.
Tielsch, Edinboro’s leading scorer, was
constantly harassed as Mercyhurst double and triple-teamed him,
yet the 6’8” senior nearly finished with a
triple-double. Despite a season-low 11 points, he had 9 rebounds
and a career-high 9 assists.
After shooting just 32.0 percent from the floor
in the first half, Edinboro rebounded to finish the game at 51.7
percent. The Scots were guilty of 20 turnovers, however, and were
outrebounded for the third straight game, 35-32. |
