Box Score
HAVERFORD,
Pa. – Mark Gabriel
and Jeremy Bass combined for 40 points on
17-for-21 shooting, lifting Haverford over Gettysburg 89-75 in Centennial Conference (CC)
men’s basketball action on Saturday.
Gabriel
collected a game-high 22 points and Bass finished with 18
as the Fords (8-9, 7-4 CC) posted their second-ever victory
against the Bullets (11-7, 8-3 CC) and first in the last
nine meetings between the teams. Haverford’s only other
win in the series was a 55-51 decision
during the 1998-99 season.
Point guard
Johnny Elefterakis also sparked Haverford with 14 points
and 13 assists. Jason Polykoff
added 17 points off the bench for the Fords, who shot 60
percent from the floor for the game, including a blistering
19-for-26 (73 percent) after halftime.
David
Glaser (West Chester, PA/Malvern
Prep) poured
in a team-high 21 points for Gettysburg,
which committed 19 turnovers that led to 30 Haverford points.
The loss snapped the Bullets’ road winning streak at
six games and overall winning streak at seven.
The set-back
also dropped Gettysburg back into a three-way
tie with Franklin & Marshall and Johns Hopkins for first
place in the CC standings.
After watching
halftime leads turn into losses in each of the Bullets’
last two trips to Alumni Field House, the Fords came out
of the break ahead and left no doubt with a near-perfect
second half.
Trailing
18-14, Matt Stein and Bass ignited an 11-0
run that put Haverford on top for good at 25-18 with 6:30
left in the half. Ryan Page’s (Laurel, MD/St. John’s College [DC]) layup pulled the visitors within 29-26, but a 3-point play
by Gabriel and a Stein jumper gave the Fords a 34-28 halftime
edge.
Despite
14 first-half turnovers, Gettysburg pulled within two in
the first minute of the second half and remained within
range at 54-48 on a 3-pointer from Mike Spadafora (Richboro, PA/Archbishop Wood) with 12:09
left.
The Bullets,
however, couldn’t make up ground against a Haverford
offense that scored on 15 consecutive possessions. Between
a missed jumper by Bass with 15:28 left and an Elefterakis
turnover more than 10 minutes later, the Fords made no empty
trips, stretching the lead to 77-59 on a layup by Bass with 4:05 left.
From there,
Haverford cruised to its fifth straight CC win, the longest
program’s longest conference winning streak since an
eight-game run in 1995-96.
The Fords’
89 points matched Carthage’s double-overtime total as the most scored
by a Gettysburg opponent this
season. The Bullets entered the day with the CC’s top
scoring defense (61.7 points allowed per game).
Spadafora and Matt Whelan (Ridgefield, CT/Ridgefield/Worcester
Acad. [MA]) added 12 points in the losing effort.
Erik Fromm (Swedesboro,
NJ/Kingsway
Regional) also hit double digits with 10.
Gettysburg returns to action on Wednesday at Franklin & Marshall.
Game time is 8 p.m.
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