GETTYSBURG, Pa. – Senior guard Sean Gordon scored a career-high 21 points on 6-of-8 3-point shooting, but the Gettysburg College men's basketball team was edged 71-65 to Messiah College in a tight non-conference men's basketball game Wednesday evening in Bream Gymnasium.
In a game that featured three ties and 18 lead changes, Messiah (5-3) pulled away with a 6-0 spurt inside the final two minutes.
Junior forward Kevin Gladstone added 13 points and seven rebounds to go with career-highs of seven assists and four steals for the Bullets (5-3).
Four Falcons scored in double figures, led by Luke Cable and David Fernandez-Bravo, who scored 17 apiece. Fernandez also grabbed nine rebounds while Geoff Boyle scored Messiah's final eight points to finish with 14. Zac Hoy also netted 14 points for the Falcons, who shot 53.1 percent from the field.
The two sides combined for 19 3-pointers, including 11 from Gettysburg, which tied its season-high output from beyond the arc.
The Bullets led 62-61 with 2:39 left after Gordon fed sophomore guard Pete Christ, who dropped in an acrobatic fast-break lay-up. But that's when Messiah went on their 6-0 run, powered by a trio of lay-ups from Boyle. In the meantime, the Bullets missed a pair of 3-pointers and the front end of a 1-and-1 free-throw opportunity.
Gordon snapped the run when he drained his career-high sixth trey of the night from the left wing to make it 67-65 with 13 seconds left. But the Bullets were forced to foul, and Hoy made a pair of free throws with nine ticks showing.
Gettysburg committed a turnover on the inbound play before Boyle set the final score with a pair of free throws.
Messiah opened the game on a 6-2 run but Gettysburg came back with a 10-2 surge to assume a 12-8 lead with 11:23 left in the opening half. However, the Falcons reclaimed the advantage with just over seven minutes remaining and led 26-20 with 2:55 showing following a triple from Cable. The Bullets answered with a 5-0 spurt before Messiah ended the half on an 8-2 run, capped by a buzzer-beating trey from Cable to put the visitors up 34-27 at the break.
Gordon scored just six of his points in the opening half before coming out strong in the second half. He pumped in eight points over the first five minutes of the stanza, and his 3-pointer with 15:03 on the clock capped an 8-0 run to put the Bullets up 41-39. Later in the half, a triple from sophomore forward Cody Kiefer made it 49-43 in favor of Gettysburg with 11:00 remaining. Kiefer, the Bullets' leading scorer from last season, was making his first appearance of the year after missing the team's first seven games due to injury.
It was still a six-point game after Gladstone went 2-for-2 at the line with 9:52 left, but Messiah rallied with an 8-2 run to go back in front on another 3-pointer from Cable with 7:27 to go. The remainder of the game featured eight more lead changes, with the advantage see-sawing on seven straight field goals, capped by Boyle's lay-in with 2:25 left that kicked off Messiah's decisive run.
MESSIAH (5-3)
Luke Cable 6-10 0-0 17; David Fernandez 8-11 1-2 17; Geoff Boyle 5-12 4-4
14; Zac Hoy 4-9 4-4 14; Jimmy Brackett 2-3 0-0 4; Neil Murren 1-1 0-0 3;
Josh Clippinger 0-2 2-2 2; Micah Brown 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 26-49 11-12 71.
GETTYSBURG (5-3)
Sean Gordon 7-10 1-1 21; Kevin Gladstone 4-8 5-5 13; Tanner Kirkpatrick 3-9
1-1 8; Pete Christ 3-7 0-0 8; Joe Emerusabe 1-5 2-3 4; Matt England 1-1 0-0
3; Cody Kiefer 1-3 0-0 3; Cameron Stewart 1-5 1-2 3; Uri Rahimi 1-1 0-0 2;
Alex Kaslander 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-49 10-12 65.
Messiah....................... 34 37 - 71
Gettysburg.................... 27 38 - 65
3-point goals--Messiah 8-21 (Luke Cable 5-9; Zac Hoy 2-5; Neil Murren 1-1;
Jimmy Brackett 0-1; Josh Clippinger 0-2; Geoff Boyle 0-2; David Fernandez
0-1), Gettysburg 11-26 (Sean Gordon 6-8; Pete Christ 2-4; Tanner Kirkpatrick
1-5; Matt England 1-1; Cody Kiefer 1-2; Cameron Stewart 0-2; Joe Emerusabe
0-4). Fouled out--Messiah-None, Gettysburg-None. Rebounds--Messiah 24 (David
Fernandez 9), Gettysburg 27 (Kevin Gladstone 7). Assists--Messiah 12 (Zac
Hoy 4), Gettysburg 15 (Kevin Gladstone 7). Total fouls--Messiah 14,
Gettysburg 12. Technical fouls--Messiah-None, Gettysburg-None. A-265