READING, Pa. – The Juniata men's basketball team won its first Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) postseason title after upsetting host No. 1 seed Albright College 91-80 in double-overtime Sunday afternoon. The Eagles recorded the most wins in program history this season finishing 21-9 overall.
Junior Jeremy Hays (McMechen, W. Va./John Marshall) was named tournament MVP. He scored a game and career-high 24 points in the championship with a team-high three steals. He scored 14 of his points in the first half. All five starters finished in double figures. Junior Kevin Stapleton (Indiana, Pa./Indiana) earned 15 points in 44 minutes on the floor while fellow junior Brian Scholly (State College, Pa./State College) picked up 13 points. Seniors Nate Higgins (St. Mary's, Pa./Elk County Catholic) and Alex Raymond (Hollidaysburg, Pa./Altoona) finished with 11 points each. Higgins grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds for a double-double.
Junior Lucas Mellot (Wardsburg, Pa./Southern Fulton) put in valuable minutes off the bench for the Eagles. He recorded nine points and nine rebounds.
The teams went back and forth during most of the first half. Juniata went on a 7-2 run to take the lead (33-29) with 4:18 on the clock. But the Eagles offense stalled and Albright scored 11 unanswered points heading into the break up 40-33.
The Eagles drought continued into the second half until Higgins hit a layup at 17:51. With Albright up 46-35, Juniata put on a press and scored 12 unanswered points of their own to take the lead 47-46 with 13:23 on the clock.
Kyle Jordan finally broke the Lions silence on a layup after nearly five minutes and the teams went back to trading buckets.
Juniata regained the lead (59-57) on a three by Scholly at 8:16. Jordan tied it back up at 59 with 6:15 remaining in the game and Stapleton responded with a three on the next possession to give Juniata the lead.
The Eagles held onto the lead until Zach Benjamin completed a three-point play at the foul line to give Albright the 66-64 lead with 3:10 to play.
Stapleton pulled Juniata within one (68-67) on a deep three with 1:06 on the clock.
Down 69-67 with 45.9 seconds remaining, Hays drove to the basket and drew a foul. He hit both free throws to tie the game up at 69-all.
With 26 seconds on the clock, Sam Marrella's three fell short for the Lions and the team's got tied up on the rebound forcing a jump ball that went Albright's way. Juniata played tight defense for the final seconds and Mellott got a huge block in the corner with less than a second remaining to send it into overtime.
Albright got on the board first in overtime with a three. Scholly responded with a three to tie the score again with 1:51 on the clock.
Both teams hit a jumper within 11 seconds of each other and the game sat tied up again (74-74) with only 48 seconds to play. Juniata would get possession with a 12 second differential between the game and shot clock.
Hays' shot with three seconds on the shot clock fell short, but Scholly grabbed the rebound and kicked it back out to the top of the key. Curley called timeout to set up the final play for the Eagles. They set up a three for Scholly with four seconds left that bounced off the rim and out of bounds leaving two on the clock for the Lions. But tight defense by Juniata forced the second overtime.
Stapleton opened scoring in the second overtime with a three. The Eagles would go up by five (82-77) before Albright began fouling. Juniata held the Lions to just two points in the final two minutes. The game was tied a total of nine times with 23 lead changes.
Juniata ends the season with the most wins in program history. They are ranked in every statistical category as a team including 27th in assists-turnover ratio and 34th in 3-point field goal percentage. Three Eagles end the year ranked nationally. Raymond concludes his career ranked in free throw percentage, assists per game and assist-turnover ratio. Hays is recognized in the same categories as Raymond but also appears in the steals per game list. And Scholly is ranked in points per game, field goal percentage, 3-point field goal percentage and 3-point field goals per game. He is ranked fourth and sixth respectively in the latter two categories.
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