Box Score

GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The Gettysburg College men's basketball team shot 63.2 percent from the field, including a scalding 80.0 percent in the second half, and utilized a balanced scoring effort to down Johns Hopkins University 70-61 in the Centennial Conference opener for both teams Wednesday evening in Bream Gymnasium.

The Bullets (1-3, 1-0 CC), who earned their first victory of the season, broke open a tie game at halftime by outscoring the Blue Jays (2-2, 0-1 CC) 10-2 to start the second half. Gettysburg would not trail the rest of the way and held off a late Hopkins run.

Junior center Andrew Powers (Boyertown, Pa./Boyertown) finished with 12 points, five rebounds, and five assists and is now just 18 points shy of 1,000 for his career. Junior forward Kevin Kennedy (Gaithersburg, Md./Quince Orchard) had 12 points, five boards, and three assists while senior guard Brendan Hager (Berwyn, Pa./Conestoga) added a career-high 12 points to go with four assists for the Bullets, who posted their top shooting performance since hitting 64.7 percent of their shots in a 95-87 win over Salem State in the second round of the NCAA Division III Tournament on March 7, 2008.

A pair of freshmen also contributed, as forward Alex Zurn (Brookeville, Md./St. Andrew's Episcopal) notched a season-high 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting along with four rebounds, two blocks, and three steals. Guard Larry Geedey (Elverson, Pa./Twin Valley) added a season-high eight points off the bench.

Senior guard Pat O'Connell led all players with 18 points for Johns Hopkins while senior forward Andrew Farber-Miller posted 15 points and eight rebounds.

The first half featured five ties and 12 lead changes, with neither team building more than a four-point lead. Both sides struggled to get their offense going early on, and the Blue Jays led 15-11 with 10:57 to go in the half following a Adam Spengler jumper. Hopkins took its final lead of the night (24-22) on a pair of Tim McCarty foul shots with 3:54 showing, but Spengler drained a trey with 21 seconds left to make it a 27-27 game at the break.

The Blue Jays, who entered the game with a conference-leading 10.6 rebounding margin, outrebounded the Bullets 21-7 in the opening stanza. However, Hopkins committed 13 of their 15 turnovers in the first half.

Hager scored the Bullets first five points of the second period to put his team in front for good, as he nailed a pair of free throws four seconds into the stanza before draining a three-pointer less than a minute later. Two Powers foul shots and a Kennedy three sandwiched around a Farber-Miller jumper gave the Bullets a 37-29 lead with 17:37 left.

The Jays cut the deficit to five on two occasions, the last coming on a Mike Henrici jumper with 11:10 to go. But senior guard Andrew Bohan (Smithsburg, Md./Smithsburg) promptly answered with five straight points on a layup and a three-pointer to give the Bullets their first double-digit lead (48-38) of the night.

Gettysburg led by as much as 16 after a Hager triple with 3:58 left, but a 10-0 Blue Jay surge, capped by an O'Connell three, made it 65-59 with 1:04 left. However, the Bullets put the game away at the foul line, going 5-for-6 inside the final minute.

The Bullets went 12-for-15 from the field in the second half and shot 4-for-5 from beyond the arc over the final 20 minutes.

Hopkins finished with a 32-22 advantage on the glass and took 26 more shots (64-38) than Gettysburg. However, the Bullets attempted 13 more foul shots (21-8) than the Blue Jays and outscored the visitors 16-5 at the charity stripe.

Gettysburg returns to Centennial Conference action on Saturday, when it visits Haverford College at 8 p.m.