Grantham, Pa., Sunday, Feb. 12, 2011– Despite being only down three at halftime and six with 9:40 to go in the second, the Arcadia University Men's basketball team (5-17 Overall 0-12 Commonwealth) was unable to put together a comeback settling for a 65-52 loss to the Falcons of Messiah College (11-11 Overall 6-6 Commonwealth) at Messiah's home court. The loss gives the Falcons a season sweep of the series between the two, following a 64-55 victory over the Knights at the Kuch Center in January.
The first half featured five ties and four lead changes as both teams battled back and forth for the first 20 minutes. No team had a lead bigger than six during the half, when the Knights were up 18-12 on their opponent halfway through, following a Rashon Brock '14 layup. Messiah responded after going on a three minute 8-0 run to grab a two point lead. The score stayed within two until with 34 seconds to go when the Falcons' Chris Yoder downed a trey to give the home team a 30-25 lead. Colin McCarthy '12 cut the lead to three by sinking two foul shots with six seconds to go giving him six points for the half. Messiah took advantage of 10 Knight turnovers outscoring Arcadia 14-4 in points off turnovers. Arcadia on the other hand, out-rebounded the Falcons by a 12-11 margin as well as shot an impressive 55.6 percent (10-18 FG) from the field including four three pointers. Messiah also had six treys of their own.
Messiah jumped on Arcadia to begin the second half, using a 5-0 run in the first five minutes to jump out to their largest lead of the game at 11. The Falcons kept the lead in the double digits and high single digits for the next five minutes but a McCarthy layup from Damien Palantino 'GR followed by a monstrous Brock dunk cut the lead to six, 46-41. That was as close as Arcadia would get as Messiah brought the lead back up to 11 in 50 seconds and steadily added to their lead en route to the 65-52 victory. In spite of the outcome of the second half, the Knights outscored the Falcons 18-10 in the point as 5-0 in second change points. The Falcons used the three ball, adding four more three pointers in the half and were able to cool off Arcadia's first half shooting performance forcing the Knights to shoot 37.9 percent (11-29) from the field, including just 1-12 from beyond the arc.
For the Knights, McCarthy came off the bench to deliver a game-high 19 points on 7-12 shooting in 31 minutes of actions. Fellow junior, Jason Thompson put up 12 points of his own including two treys. Messiah was paced by four players in double figures, with Chris Yoder collecting a team high 13 points, including three field goals from three point land. David Fernandez added 11 points and pulled down a game high nine rebounds.
Arcadia, who has two conference games to go in the season, will travel down the Blue Route to battle the Pride of Widener University this Tuesday. Tip-off is slated for 8 p.m. following the women's game at 6 p.m.
