HAVERFORD, Pa. – Haverford College's men's basketball team withstood a furious second-half rally by visiting McDaniel College and hung on for a 51-49 victory in an important Centennial Conference victory for the Fords on Saturday afternoon in Gooding Arena.
The win keeps Haverford (8-13, 6-8 CC) within striking distance of the fifth and final spot for the postseason conference tournament while McDaniel (7-14, 4-10) likely sealed its fate with the loss. Muhlenberg College, at 7-6 in league play, clings to the fifth seed with a game-and-a-half lead over the Fords.
Saturday's win took every second of the game as the Green Terror, who trailed by 11 at halftime, missed a strongly contested layup in the final seconds which would have sent the contest into overtime. Bo Friddell ripped down the rebound, one of his team-leading seven on the day, to finally close out the win for Haverford.
McDaniel broke out the gate in the second half and erased its halftime deficit, moving ahead of the Fords, 34-33, at the 11:30 mark on a Louis Sarris-Grau layup. The lead flip-flopped twice before Ian Goldberg hit a driving layup from the left side to put Haverford up 39-38.
Tied at 41-41 with 6:20 to play, the Fords' Cam Baker pulled down a rebound off a Phillip Perry miss, turned up court and fired a long pass down the left sideline to Goldberg who found Brett Cohen under the basket for an easy two and a lead that would hold up despite the Green Terror's gritty effort.
The Fords pushed the advantage to as many as six over the final two minutes but McDaniel wouldn't go away, battling back to within two points with 47 seconds remaining. Haverford squandered a chance to put the game away with under 20 to play setting up the frantic final play, but the Green Terror's miss and Friddell's rebound cemented the victory and gave the Fords a season sweep of the series.
Baker finished with a team-high 14 points and got help in the offensive end with Goldberg's 13 and Friddell's 11 points. Baker joined Friddell with seven boards while Goldberg registered a game-high five assists. Doug Macrone posted a game-high 15 points for McDaniel and Evan Pupelis led all rebounders with 11 in the loss.
Haverford finished with 20 points off 19 Green Terror turnovers and bounced back from a difficult first half on the glass to trail McDaniel by only a 31-30 count in rebounds at the end of the game.
The Fords, winners of two in a row, will try to stretch the run to three with their next game, a Wednesday night trip to Collegeville, Pa., where they will square off against Ursinus College which, at 7-7 in the Centennial, sits one game ahead of Haverford in the league standings.