Keith Burgess hit the game-winning shot with five seconds left, Pitt-Bradford scored the final four points in regulation and the Panthers shocked Medaille 64-63 Wednesday night in front of a rowdy student section.
Anthony Battaglia's long three-pointer at the buzzer missed and the students poured onto the floor, celebrating the victory with the Panthers. And it was a much needed one at that.
Pitt-Bradford improved to 7-10 in the AMCC and moved a step closer to securing the final playoff spot in the conference tournament, which starts next Tuesday. The men are currently tied with Penn State Altoona for sixth-place with one game remaining.
It was a nail-biter from start to finish as the game featured eight ties and 13 lead exchanges.
The Mavericks hit five threes in the first half and closed the opening stanza on a 9-1 run to lead 34-26 at the break.
Medaille quickly pushed its lead to nine on a triple in the opening minute of the second half, its largest of the night. The Panthers responded by going on an 11-2 scoring run, evening the score at 41 on two Jesse DeLoof free throws.
The visitors would surge back ahead only to see Pitt-Bradford rally and tie the game at 51-all with 10:21 left. Tyler Ferguson's jumper at the 5:54 mark gave the Panthers a four-point lead. Medaille scored eight of the nine next points to push ahead 63-60 with 1:30 remaining.
With less than a minute to play, Ferguson scored on a backdoor layup and after a missed shot by the Mavericks, the Panthers avoided a near turnover along the baseline by calling a timeout. On the inbounds play underneath, DeLoof's pass was initially tipped, but Bugress collected the ball and laid it in for the game-winning basket.
Pitt-Bradford shot 44 percent from the floor, hit six threes and was 14-21 from the line. The Mavericks hit on 41 percent of their attempts and outrebounded the Panthers by six. In the second half, they were limited to just two made three-pointers.
Burgess scored a game-high 18 points and Ferguson had a double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds. Brandon McClester added 10 points and four steals, and Lucas Pichette came off the bench to total six rebounds.
"That was a great team win," said head coach Britt Moore. "We have been so close in most of our games and it feels great to get one. We wanted to go 3-0 this week and this game was a big piece of that.
"Keith [Burgess] and Tyler [Ferguson] really stepped up and made some big plays. McClester was great defensively, and Jesse [Deloof] did a nice job playing with four fouls."
Pitt-Bradford evens its record at 12-12 on the year and wraps up the regular season Saturday at home against Franciscan.