Led by 26 points from Blake Scinta, the Centre men's basketball team pulled away down the stretch for a 71-61 road win over Berry College in a Southern Athletic Association game Friday in Rome, Ga.
Scinta, a junior forward from Louisville, Ky. who picked up his third SAA Player of the Week award on Monday, scored 15 of his 26 points in the second half. Josh Karsner (Frankfort, Ky.) also got 13 of his 19 points, including shooting 10-of-10 from the free throw line, in the second period. Those performances were clutch for the Colonels, who built a comfortable lead in the closing minutes after four lead changes and three ties in the second half. Tyler Harville had 17 points in the game to lead Berry.
Berry pulled within one point at 56-55 as late as the 4:55 mark in the second half, but Centre went on to outscore the Vikings 15-6 the rest of the way. Karsner shot 7-of-7 from the free throw line over the final 2:27 to help put the game away for the Colonels. After being involved in a close contest most of the way, Centre reached its biggest lead at 71-59 after a Karsner free throw with 19 seconds remaining.
The game began with Scinta scoring the first six points, and Centre controlled most of the first half. A stretch in which Karsner, Bryan Repishti (Louisville, Ky.), and Sam Gruber (LaGrange, Ky.) made 3-pointers in a three-minute span allowed Centre to pull out to a 25-17 lead, but Berry would cut it back to 30-28 by halftime.
Berry took its first lead in the opening minutes of the second half when a Harville 3-pointer put the Vikings up 33-32. The lead changed hands four more times before the Colonels finally pulled away.
Berry held a slight overall shooting edge, shooting 46 percent (22-of-48) overall to Centre's 43 percent, while the Colonels shot 42 percent (8-of-19) from 3-point range to the Vikings' 35 percent (7-of-20). Centre also held a 30-27 rebounding advantage and turned the ball over seven times to Berry's nine.
With the victory, Centre moves to a 19-4 overall record and 10-3 a 10-3 SAA record, the Colonels' eighth straight win after opening league play at 2-3. Centre also keeps pace with Rhodes atop the league standings after the Lynx were 78-70 winners over Birmingham-Southern later in the evening. A win over Oglethorpe on Sunday would give the Colonels at least a share of the regular season conference championship, though Rhodes would be the No. 1 seed and host the SAA Tournament via tiebreaker with a win over Millsaps on Sunday. Berry drops to 7-17 on the season and 3-10 in the conference, and will wrap up the regular season by hosting Sewanee on Sunday.