Box Score

COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Junior guards Keith Page and Matt Hilton scored a game-high 18 points apiece and No. 9 Gettysburg was unable to overcome an early second-half scoring drought as the Bullets dropped an 82-53 Centennial Conference decision to No. 21 Ursinus College Saturday afternoon at Helfferich Hall.

In a rematch of last season's Centennial Conference championship game, Ursinus (5-1, 2-0 CC) nearly led from start to finish, trailing for only the opening two minutes of the contest. The Bears led by 11 at halftime before holding Gettysburg (4-1, 1-1 CC) to five points over the opening seven minutes of the second period.

With the loss, the Bullets saw their 14-game regular season winning streak come to an end.

Sophomore center Andrew Powers (Boyertown, Pa./Boyertown) led Gettysburg with 12 points and seven rebounds while senior forward Joe Spierenburg (Chambersburg, Pa./St. Maria Goretti [Md.]) had 11 points.

Ursinus shot 49.2% from the field and 81.3% (13-of-16) at the foul line while the Bullets were 38.5% from the field and 52.6% (10-of-19) at the charity stripe. The Bears canned 11-of-28 three-pointers while Gettysburg was just 3-for-19 from beyond the arc.

The Bullets committed 21 turnovers while Ursinus turned it over 16 times.

Senior guard John Noonan scored all of his 14 points in the second half for Ursinus while senior guard Eric Burnett added 11 points off the bench. Senior guard Remy Cousart added seven rebounds and seven assists for the Bears.

Senior guard Dan Capkin (Wynewood, Pa./Lower Merion) scored five points to up his career total to 1,192, passing Scott d'Entremont '92 for eighth in school history. He also hit one three-pointer to move into third in career treys (158) at Gettysburg.

The game marked No. 490 at Gettysburg for head coach George Petrie, who passed Bob Hulton (1957-77) for second on the school's all-time list. Hen Bream holds the Gettysburg record with 504 games coached.

Both teams came out cold to start the game, but Ursinus found its outside shooting touch midway through the opening period, when it used an 11-2 run to open up a nine-point lead. Senior forward Matt Brundage converted a conventional three-point play to kick off the spurt before Burnett canned back-to-back treys to put the Bears up 18-9.

The Bullets pulled to within six on a pair of occasions, the second on a bank shot from sophomore forward Kevin Kennedy (Gaithersburg, Md./Quince Orchard) with 7:07 on the clock that made it 21-15. But that's when Ursinus ran off seven unanswered points to take its largest lead of the half (28-15) after a Brundage lay-up with 5:34 showing.

Gettysburg came right back with a 7-0 run of its own to cut the deficit to six once again. Spierenburg canned a hook shot with 4:43 left before making 1-of-2 free throws less than a minute later. Capkin then converted a fastbreak lay-up off a steal from senior guard Chris Nevolo (Neshanic Station, N.J./Somerville) before a Powers lay-in made it a 28-22 game with 3:24 showing.

The Bears would answer again, however, outscoring the Bullets 9-4 to end the half and take a 37-26 lead into the locker room. A Hilton pull-up jumper pushed Ursinus' lead back to 13 (37-24) with 55 seconds left, but Powers banked in a jumper just inside the foul line as the buzzer sounded.

Spierenburg scored all 11 of his points on 4-of-5 shooting in the opening half while Hilton also pumped in 11 points in the period.

The Bullets missed two of their first nine shots while committing seven turnovers over the opening seven minutes of the second half. In the meantime, the Bears slowly pulled away and eventually pushed their advantage to as much as 23 (54-31) with 15:02 left following a conventional three-point play from Hilton.

The Bears effectively put the game away with an 11-0 surge over a 1:23 span midway through the half that extended their lead to 29 (68-39) with 9:01 remaining.

Gettysburg returns to action next Saturday, when it visits Widener University for a non-conference game starting at 2 p.m.