The Crusaders (9-6, 3-3 PAC), on the road in a match-up of two teams entering the night with identical 3-2 records in conference, were perfect on all six charity tosses in the first half in building a 43-39 halftime lead. The basket on the opposite end was not as kind as junior Chris Talley was the only Crusader to connect from 15 feet unguarded at the 13:39 mark.
Leading 70-68 with 1:46 to play, junior guard Lamar Brickus missed the front end of the 1-and-1. He missed again from the line a minute later after an exchange of hoops left Alvernia up 72-70. Junior Corey Brown dropped in two of his game-high 35 points on the next Cougar possession to tie the score at 72-72 with 13 seconds to play, and needing only to play defense to force overtime the Cougars fouled junior Ryan Finger with 12 ticks left in regulation.
Misericordia junior Josh Kendrick corralled Fingers’ second miss, but Alvernia denied a last-second effort from Andre Little to force overtime.
Talley, who scored a career-high 28 points to lead the Crusaders, cut into a 5-point Misericordia lead with his third 3 of the night at the 1:42 mark of the overtime period, but the Cougars nailed 3-of-4 free throws in their final three possessions to salt away the 4-point win.
Junior forward Zach Straining and sophomore guard Garrett Etzel also scored double-figures for the Crusaders with 12 points each. The Cougars got 10 from Little and 16 more from sophomore guard Tony Rezykowski.
Misericordia held a 5-point lead at 19-14 in the first half before Talley and Mike Brock nailed a pair of 3s as part of a 12-4 streak that put the guests up 26-23 with 6:00 left on the first-half clock. The hosts battled back for a 1-point lead only to see Talley and Brock again connect from downtown on three straight possessions as the Crusaders built a 6-point edge, 41-35 with 1:24 to go. Brown and Little trimmed the gap to two points with back-to-back buckets, before Talley closed the first-half scoring sinking a pair from the free throw line.
Straining and junior center Brandon Thompson doubled the lead to open the second half, and the Crusaders maintained the 8-point lead following layups at the 12:38 and 9:05 marks. Misericordia answered the latter with a 7-0 streak with all seven coming from Brown, but Talley answered that with four of his own and Etzel tacked on two more to push the Crusader lead back to seven, 66-59, with 4:52 left in regulation.
Etzel followed a pair of Brown free throws with a bucket at 3:41 to maintain the 7-point edge, but Misericordia scored seven of the next nine points before Little fouled Brickus with 1:46 left in a 2-point game.