HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College men's basketball team battled Penn State Harrisburg to a thrilling finish in the team's season opener on Wednesday night inside the Gooding '84 Arena. In front of an amped up home court advantage, the Fords raced out to double digit lead in the opening half and rallied from an 11 point deficit in the second half. However, their efforts in front of the enthusiastic crowd ultimately fell short by an 85-79 score in overtime against the visiting Nittany Lions.
The Fords got monster nights from Joe Scibelli and Jonathan Lang in the home opener. Scibelli scored a career-high 29 points, with 19 of those points coming in the second half and overtime. The junior captain was 4-of-5 from beyond the arc during the final 25 minutes and finished with a career-best five three-pointers made and just missed a double-double with nine rebounds.
Jonathan Lang added 19 points to go along with nine steals as he too just missed a double-double. Lang's nine steals helped Haverford to a 27-19 advantage in points off of turnovers. His takeaways accounted for the third-highest single-game steal total in program history. The Haverford defense caused a total of 26 Nittany Lion giveaways on the night, but it was still not enough to overcome a 16-of-29 night at the free throw line.
The Fords got out to a big lead by running off 11 straight points after the Nittany Lions started with a 3-0 advantage. Four of those points came directly off of coast-to-coast steals from Lang who was a menace on the defensive end all night. Haverford reached its largest advantage of the evening at the 8:43 mark of the opening half when Sam Stogdon got a layup to go off a pass from Lang, making the score 22-12.
A 6-0 run jumpstarted a stretch in which the Nittany Lions took a 26-24 lead following a 14-2 run. A three-pointer from Lang started a back-and-forth final couple minutes of the half which ended with Scibelli knocking down a free throw to give his team a 31-30 lead at the break.
Penn State Harrisburg took its largest lead of the contest just 5:24 into the second half by scoring 16 of the first 20 points in the second period. That lead was trimmed to just four points following back-to-back treys from Scibelli that made the score 54-50 with 10:21 remaining in regulation. The NIttany Lions ballooned their lead back to seven points on a pair of occasions. However, a free throw from Scibelli at the 6:48 mark made the score 59-55 and the Fords would not trail by more than those four points for the rest of regulation time.
After four-plus minutes of trying to tie it up, Kyle Goldfarb finally did just that with 2:01 showing on the game clock when he got into the lane to not the score at 63. Lang came up with another one of his steals and baskets for Haverford to take a brief lead before the visitors retook the lead on an old fashioned three-point play. Another three from Scibelli gave Haverford a 68-66 lead with under a minute go, but once again the Nittany Lions answered with two more points. Tied at 68 with just over 30 seconds to play, each team made a trip to the free throw line, but came away with just the back end of the double bonus to send the game into overtime tied at 69.
During the extra period, the visitors scored the first five points of the period before Scibelli's final trey stopped that early run. Penn State Harrisburg led by as many as six points with 1:27 left in the overtime session before another steal and basket from Lang made the score 80-77 with 1:09 to play. However, the Fords would never get a chance at the game-tying basket as the Nittany Lions made five throws in the final minute to stave off Haverford's final comeback bid.
Men's basketball will look to bounce back from a hard-fought season opener when the team travels to the New York University Tournament this Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's first game against Clark University is set to tip at 9:30 p.m. time.