SWARTHMORE, Pa. – Senior Alex Zurn went over the 1,000-point plateau for his career and the Gettysburg College men's basketball won its third game in a row, defeating Swarthmore College 77-69 on the road in a Centennial Conference tilt Saturday afternoon.
Zurn reached his milestone with 16 seconds left. After a jump shot had pulled the Garnet to within four, he was fouled off the inbound pass. Stepping to the charity stripe with 999 points, Zurn sunk both attempts while becoming the 24th player in program history to reach 1,000. He finished the day with 20 points and added three steals, giving him 101 for his career, which is tied for ninth in school history
Senior center Benjamin Constable scored a season-high 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting for the Bullets (11-8, 7-5 CC), who have now won nine of their last 11 games. Gettysburg will finish the day tied with the loser of today's game between Johns Hopkins and Muhlenberg for fourth place in the Centennial Conference standings.
Freshman guard Sango Amolo added nine points for the Bullets despite missing nearly the entire first half after picking up two early fouls. Junior forward Connor Poston (Ambler, Pa./Hatboro-Horsham) contributed eight points and a game-high nine rebounds.
Will Gates led all scorers with 23 points for Swarthmore (5-14, 4-8 CC) while Jay Kober contributed 15 points. Joe Keedy added 14 points and eight rebounds while Karl Barkley scored 11 points. Jordan Federer handed out seven assists.
Gettysburg shot 65.0 percent from the floor, the team's best mark since, ironically, a 72-59 win at Swarthmore on Jan. 29, 2011, when it shot 67.4 percent.
It was a 3-point shootout in the early going, when at one point the two sides combined to score 18 straight points on six 3-pointers. The sequence featured five lead changes, with Constable, who knocked down his first collegiate trey, and Zurn putting the Bullets in front by one. Keedy and Gates followed up with the third and fourth-straight triples for Swarthmore to give the Garnet their largest lead of the game at 14-9 with 16:21 on the clock.
Gettysburg went back in front (18-16) on a conventional 3-point play from Poston with 12:18 left before Gates tied it 14 seconds later. The Bullets then used a 13-4 run to open up a nine-point advantage (31-22) with 5:26 showing following a 3-pointer from sophomore Joe Emerusabe. Senior Derek Brooks converted a driving lay-up with 46 seconds left to give the visitors a 36-30 at halftime.
Constable and Gates scored 12 points each in the opening period, when the Bullets shot 63.6 percent from the floor.
After a Zurn lay-up nine seconds into the second stanza, the Garnet ran off seven straight points. A Federer runner capped a 9-1 run and tied it (39-39) with 17:17 remaining; however, Amolo banked in a jumper in the paint 28 seconds later to give the Bullets a lead they would not relinquish.
Gettysburg nudged its advantage to eight (54-46) on a fastbreak lay-up by Zurn with 10:54 to go before going up by nine (60-51) when senior center Christian Bors hit two free throws with 8:00 left. The Bullets led by as much as 11, first on an Amolo lay-up with 2:42 left and again on two Amolo free throws with 1:30 remaining. However, the Garnet refused go away, and a 10-3 run cut the deficit to four (73-69) with 16 seconds left when Barkley knocked down a jumper from the left corner with his foot on the 3-point line, setting up Zurn's big free throws.
After Barkley missed a 3-pointer, Constable grabbed the rebound and hit two more foul shots with six ticks showing to set the final score.