Chester, PA - Messiah College earned a big Commonwealth win on Tuesday, defeating Widener University 85-74 on the road to stay in the conference playoff hunt. The Falcons used a 15-5 run to closeout the first-half, holding onto their late lead to defeat the Pride for the second time this season.
 
The win moves Messiah to 13-10 overall and 9-8 in the Commonwealth. They are now tied in the conference with both Lycoming and Arcadia for the final three playoff spots. Alvernia and Albright remain in first- and second-place, respectively.
 
Hood and Stevenson both lost on Tuesday to fall to 8-9 in the conference, setting up a dramatic finish for the standings heading into the season's final weekend.
 
Going into Chester, Messiah was surely looking for a fast start—and they got one. The Falcons went up 9-0 to start the game, with Christyan DeVan, Derek Mosley, Zac Hoy, and Taylor Groff each contributing a bucket. Messiah would soon go up 17-4 on a jumper by Hoy, and then 22-7 on a three-pointer by Brad Bolen.
 
At that point, with a blowout win probably on the minds of Messiah fans, Widener answered back with great force. The Pride stormed through a shocking, 20-4 run over the next 6:38 to take a 27-26 lead. Rodney Brown scored half of Widener's points over that stretch, as he was on his way to 19 points at the break.
 
But Messiah, as if realizing it was their turn to deliver a blow, responded with another big run. After a driving layup by Brown knotted the game at 31-31, the Falcons hit six of their next eight field-goal attempts to go up at the half 46-36. Hoy started the run with two spot-up three-pointers, with Groff later scoring four points of his own—including a jumper just before the halftime buzzer.
 
The Falcons' 46 points at the half was a season-high, and it was achieved mainly be a blistering 70.8% shooting performance. The Falcons made 17-24 field goal attempts, including eight of 11 shots from three-point range.  
 
At the start of the second-half Messiah's hot shooting continued by way of a full-court attack, with a fastbreak dunk by Bolen putting the Falcons up 11 at the 17:32 mark. Moments later, with the score 55-45, Bolen hit a three-pointer to start a 12-1 run as the Falcons went up by 21 points.
 
A run-out layup by Hoy with just under ten minutes remaining gave Messiah their largest leadoff the night at 71-48.
 
Messiah's big lead would prove large enough, but it was tested. Widener, as they did in the first-half, responded to a big deficit with a determined run; the Pride scored 17 of the game's next 19 points to draw to 73-65 with 3:27 on the clock.
 
But the Falcons' offense was too good for the Pride to overcome, as Bolen and Mosley each scored four points in the final minutes to cement the win.
 
Messiah shot 15-22 from the field in the second-half, and finished the game with an incredible 69.6% accuracy for the game. It is their best single-game performance for the season, well ahead of the 58.7% achieved in a win over Medaille in December. An initial look at the Messiah record books also shows that the Falcons' accuracy at Widener was their best in at least the past 13 seasons.
 
Brad Bolen the Falcons with 20 points, with Groff scoring 19 points. Hoy contributed 16 points and grabbed a team-high six rebounds while handing out a team-high eight assists. Mosley scored 12 points, with Scott Bolen adding another 10 points.
 
Brown finished with 24 points after scoring just five points in the second-half. David Nicholson and Bob Makor added 13 points and 11 points, respectively.

Widener falls to 6-18 with the loss, and is tied with Elizabethtown at 5-12 for the worst record in the Commonwealth.
 
The Falcons will look to punch their ticket to the conference tournament when they host Alvernia University (20-4, 14-3) on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. The game will be the last regular-season game for each team.