The Gators (5-6, 1-2 North Coast Athletic Conference) trailed by one with seven seconds left, before senior Casey McCloskey (Erie, Pa./Cathedral Prep) drove the length of the floor and was fouled by Earlham’s Nick Welsh with no time left on the clock. McCloskey’s first free throw attempt bounced off the right side of the rim, while his second missed to the left, giving the visitors the one-point win.
The contest started with each team taking off on a scoring run, the Gators scoring the first seven points, before Earlham (4-8, 2-1 NCAC) followed by scoring eight straight, taking a one-point lead with 13:18 left on the first-half clock. Allegheny then scored the next four straight and never trailed again for the remainder of the half. The Blue and Gold led by as many as 11 in the opening stanza, as the team took a 10-point, 30-20 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Allegheny started the second half strong, leading by 10 with 16:45 to play in the game before the visitors used a 14-2 run to turn their 10-point deficit into a two-point lead with 11 minutes to play. The Gators again responded with their own run, an 11-2 streak, that pushed their advantage to seven with just under seven minutes left in the contest.
The Blue and Gold would not relinquish their lead until the 1:13 mark of the game when the Quakers’ Tristan Gregory hit a pair of free throws, before LaRon Henry nailed a pair from the charity stripe with 16 seconds to play, giving Earlham a three-point lead. McCloskey, who now stands four points shy of the 1,000-point plateau in his career after his five-point effort tonight, drove coast-to-coast, hitting a lay-in with ten seconds remaining. Needing to foul, the Gators put Henry on the line once again, but his attempt at the one-and-one went awry, setting up the final sequence of events.
Savage was the lone Gator in double figures, hitting 6-of-9 shots from the field and 2-of-3 from the free throw line, with Ryan Hollihan (Saxonburg, Pa./Knoch) scoring eight, pulling down five rebounds and blocking three shots. Savage grabbed a team-best seven boards, as he and Bill Babe (Pittsburgh, Pa./Mt. Lebanon) had three and four steals, respectively.
The Quakers were paced by Henry, who put in 10 points, with three others, Welsh, Neil Collins and Markous Jewett each sitting one point away from double figures with nine. Tarrell Berry, in his first start of his collegiate career, pulled down a game-high nine rebounds.
The Gators take to the court again tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. when the team plays host to Wabash College at the David V. Wise Center. Wabash, who was scheduled to play Hiram tonight, had their game postponed until Sunday due to a power outage on the Hiram College campus. The game is the first in a men’s/women’s double header, with Jennifer Reimer and the women’s team taking on the Tigers of Wittenberg University following the men’s game at 4:00 p.m.