LEWISTON, Maine -- Junior Nick Lynch tallied a double-double and the Bates men's basketball team defeated Trinity College 65-48 Friday night at Alumni Gymnasium. 

The Bobcats (12-12, 4-6 NESCAC) went on a 16-0 run in the second half to break a 39-39 tie with the Bantams (15-8, 4-5 NESCAC), keeping Bates' NESCAC tournament hopes alive.

Lynch (Westford, Mass.) scored a game-high 16 points to go along with a game-high 13 rebounds. The Bobcats stayed hot from three-point range, hitting 9-19 from behind the arc. 

With the game tied at 39, Lynch converted an old fashioned three-point play to put the Bobcats up 42-39 with 9:33 to go in the game. First-year James Mortimer (Sudbury, Mass.) followed with a jumper and Lynch hit a jumper of his own to push the lead to 46-39 with 8:32 left. Neither team scored after that until Mortimer converted a layup with 5:57 remaining. 

After sophomore Nick Gilpin (Hampden, Maine) stole the ball from the Bantams, Mortimer drilled a three to put Bates up 11. Mortimer finished with nine points off the bench. A little more than a minute later, sophomore Tom Coyne (Falmouth, Maine) recorded a steal of his own and sophomore Jeff Spellman (Boston, Mass.) converted a layup to extend the lead to 53-39. The Bobcats tallied nine steals on the evening and caused 17 turnovers while only turning it over 10 times themselves. A Lynch layup put Bates up 16 with 3:24 left in regulation.

Trinity's Donald Jorden ended the Bobcats' 16-0 run with 3:07 to go, but it was too little too late for the Bantams. Jorden finished with a team-high 10 points to go along with six rebounds.

The Bobcats outscored the Bantams 29-24 in the first half and 36-24 in the second half. 

Trinity led 10-6 with 14:40 to go in the first half. With 12:25 left in the half, junior Brandon Galloway (Fort Washington, Md.) hit a three to cut the deficit to one. Coyne drilled a three of his own with 11:43 left in the first and the Bobcats did not trail again. 

With the score 14-12 in favor of Bates, the Bobcats went on a 10-0 run to extend the lead to 24-12 on a Coyne three with 6:11 to go in the opening half of action. Coyne finished the game with six points, three rebounds, three assists and three steals. 

Bates turned in a balanced performance on offense with eight different players scoring six or more points. Eric Gendron backed up Jorden's performance for Trinity with eight points, a team-high eight rebounds and a game-high five assists. Gilpin dished out a team-high four assists for Bates.

The Bobcats honored a pair of seniors on Friday. Senior captains Shawn Strickland (Middletown, Conn.) and Justin Zukowski (Portland, Maine) both started for the Bobcats, with Strickland scoring six points on 2-3 shooting and Zukowski grabbing a rebound.

Bates is currently a half game back of Trinity and Bowdoin in the conference standings. Bowdoin plays Wesleyan on Saturday and Trinity plays Tufts on Sunday. The Bobcats' best chance of making the tournament is if Bowdoin beats the Cardinals and Trinity loses to Tufts. In that situation, Bates would win the tiebreaker with the Bantams for the eighth and final spot in the tournament.

If Bowdoin and Trinity both lose, the teams would finish in a three-way tie and the two teams with the best record against the top four teams in the standings would qualify for the tournament due to the three-way tiebreaker scenario. The three teams all went 1-1 against each other this year in conference play.