Edinboro, Pa. – The Edinboro men's basketball team had five players score in double-figures as they held off a late run from Seton Hill to beat the Griffins 73-72 Saturday afternoon inside McComb Fieldhouse.
Michael Dunn put the Scots up nine, 67-58, with a 3-pointer with 1:10 on the clock. Ryan Meis answered with a trey of his own at the 57 second mark to trim the lead to 67-61.
Steve Kelly split a pair of free throws to push the lead to 68-61 with 47 seconds to play. Kedrick Curtis banked in a 3-pointer with 37 seconds on the clock to cut the lead to 68-64. With 35 seconds left, Kelly connected on a pair of free throws to push the lead back out to 70-64. Meis hit another triple for Seton Hill to trim the lead to 70-67 with 23 seconds to play.
Evan Berger hit a pair of free throws to extend the lead to 72-67.
After a missed 3-pointer by Meis, Curtis secured the rebound and was fouled. He hit both ends of the one-and-one to cut the lead to 72-69 with 8.8 seconds to play.
Ryan Ladjevich split a pair of free throws to make it 73-69 with 5 seconds remaining. A long pass on the inbounds was tipped to James Rice in the corner who hit a 3-pointer cutting the lead to 73-72. Edinboro threw a long pass to try to run out the clock, but it was stolen by Meis giving Seton Hill one final possession with 2.1 second left. A heave by Curtis at the buzzer was off the mark giving the Scots the victory.
Edinboro trailed 26-23 at the half and evened the score on their first possession with a
Cenker Evran and-one at the 19:11 mark. Meis scored the next five points to put the Griffins up 31-26. The teams traded baskets with Ladjevich scoring for Edinboro and Curtis for the Griffins to make it 33-28 with 16:08 to play. The Scots responded with a 10-0 run capped by a
Michael Dunn trey at the 13:33 mark to make the score 38-33.
Meis hit a 3-pointer and Curtis a layup to cut the Edinboro lead to 40-38 with 12:17 remaining. Wilcott and Kelly each scored buckets to extend the lead to 44-38 with 10:14 left. The Griffins cut the lead to three, 46-43, on a Rice layup at 9:09, but triples from Wilcott and Kelly sandwiching a Meis layup put the Scots back up seven, 52-45, with 8:23 remaining. Seton Hill would get as close as five, 58-53, on a Meis and-one at the 4:52 mark.
The Scots struck first in the contest on a Wilcott trey on the game's first possession. Seton Hill scored the next six points to pull ahead 9-3 with 16:06 on the clock. Edinboro went on a 5-2 spurt with a 3-pointer from Dunn and a layup by Evran to cut the lead to 11-8 at the 14:14 mark of the first.
Seton Hill scored the next five points all by Meis to push the advantage to 16-8 with 11:16 on the clock. Evran and Kelly each hit layups trimming the deficit to 16-14 with 8:13 left in the first. The Griffins answered with four straight points of their own to go back up six, 20-24 with 5:21 showing on the clock. Back-to-back triples from Dunn knotted the score 20-20 with 3:39 left in the first half.
Brian Belade put Seton Hill up 22-20 with a layup before Dunn hit another 3-pointer giving Edinboro a 23-22 lead their first since the game's opening possession. Edir Ortiz scored four in a row for the Griffins to put them up 26-23 at the break.
Dunn led the Scots in scoring with 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc. Wilcott added 16 points. Ladjevich tallied 14 points, six rebounds, six assists and four steals. Evran tallied another double-double with 13 points and 14 rebounds. Kelly was the fifth Scot to score in double figures with 10 points.
Meis lead the Griffins with 31 points including six 3-pointers. Curtis was the only other Griffin in double figures with 19 points to go with eight boards.
With the win the Scots improve to 15-10 overall and 11-7 in the PSAC West keeping pace with California for the second spot in the conference standings. Edinboro is back in action on Wednesday when they host Slippery Rock at 7:30 p.m. inside McComb Fieldhouse.
