HAVERFORD, Pa. – The visiting Green Terror from McDaniel College held off Haverford College, 68-61, in Centennial Conference men's basketball action Thursday night in Gooding Arena.
The Fords (7-6, 4-3 CC) trailed McDaniel (7-7, 4-3) by just two points at the intermission and tied the score on four different occasions in the second half, but the Green Terror pulled away from a slim two-point margin with just over two minutes remaining to close out the league victory.
Five different Fords reached double-digits in the offensive end led by Ian Goldberg's 14 points. Both Sam Permutt and Cam Baker registered 12-point nights while Bo Friddell and Brett Cohen added 10 apiece.
McDaniel was led by Devon Lesniak's 19 points and two others who reached double-figures.
Thursday's game started out quickly with a series of fast break baskets from the visitors who built a 6-1 lead in the early going. However, a three-pointer from Goldberg followed by a Baker layup one minute later knotted the score up for the first of 10 times during the night.
The lead changed hands six times over the first 20 minutes of action which came to an end with the visitors clinging to a 28-26 lead as the teams headed into the locker rooms at the break.
Four more lead changes through the first 10 minutes of second-half action set up the game's 10th tie, 47-47, at the 10:02 mark.
From that point forward the Fords weren't able to grab back the lead, though they never trailed by more than four until the 2:35 mark.
A jumper by McDaniel's Michael Jarboe pushed the visitors ahead by five but Baker's trey the next time down the court pulled the Fords back to within two as the clock wound toward the two-minute mark.
Louis Sarris-Grau hit from behind the arc for the Green Terror as the shot clock expired with less than 30 seconds remaining, and then Jarboe closed out the win with a pair of free throws with a tick remaining.
Haverford limited McDaniel to just 3-for-11 from behind the arc but all three came in the second half as the Fords were trying to regain the lead.
The Fords registered 11 steals on the night and forced the Green Terror into 16 turnovers, but the big battle that was lost came on the glass as McDaniel out rebounded Haverford by a 46-25 margin.
A 26-22 deficit from points in the paint along with 19 second-chance points surrendered to the Green Terror hurt the Fords on the scoreboard as well.
Haverford didn't have a bad night shooting the ball — 42 percent or just four percent lower than its season average — and they didn't allow a hot night from the Green Terror who were only 25-of-55 (45 percent) from the floor. The ball just didn't seem to want to bounce the Fords' way with evidence of that luck showing up in the team rebounds category where McDaniel accumulated eight in the win.
The Fords will try to get back on the winning track with their next game, another Centennial tilt, Saturday afternoon in Baltimore against Johns Hopkins University.