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LANCASTER, Pa. – Gettysburg erased a 16-point second-half deficit, but 20th-ranked Franklin & Marshall College made several key stops down the stretch to come away with a 66-62 victory in the Centennial Conference (CC) men's basketball championship game Sunday afternoon at the Mayser Center.

The second-seeded Bullets, who were making their third straight appearance in the CC championship game, used a 20-4 run midway through the second half to take the lead with 5:47 left. But top-seeded F&M scored the next four points, and Gettysburg was unable to recapture the lead, as the Bullets missed on four 3-pointers that could have tied the game inside the last three minutes.

Gettysburg was led by junior center Andrew Powers (Boyertown, Pa./Boyertown), who scored 28 points – three shy of the CC championship game record – and grabbed six rebounds.

Gettysburg concludes its season 15-11 while F&M (23-4) receives an automatic bid in the NCAA Division III Tournament.

The game was a rematch of last season's Centennial Conference championship game, which the Bullets won 73-65 at F&M.

The Bullets fell behind 36-21 in the first half before outscoring the Diplomats 41-30 in the second stanza. After making 10 turnovers in the opening period, Gettysburg turned it over just once in the second half.

“I was really proud of them,” said head coach George Petrie. “They didn't play well in the first half – we looked a little fatigued and [F&M] took advantage of that. But in the second half we came to life, generated some energy and took the lead. We had some shots at the end that we just didn't knock down.”

“We just took it possession-by-possession,” said senior guard Brendan Hager (Berwyn, Pa./Conestoga) on his team's comeback. “Our defense picked it up, and we were able to push the ball and get out into transition.”

Four of Franklin & Marshall's starters scored in double figures, led by senior guard Anthony Brooks, who netted 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting. Junior forward James McNally and sophomore guard Georgio Milligan added 13 points apiece while junior forward Mike Baker notched 11 points and 14 rebounds. Milligan also dished out five assists.

Junior forward Kevin Kennedy (Gaithersburg, Md./Quince Orchard) added 12 points and hit a pair of big 3-pointers to help fuel the Bullets rally. Hager handed out nine assists and finished the tournament with 20 in two games, breaking the previous tournament record of 17 set by Mike McGarvey of Ursinus in 2006. Freshman guard Alex Zurn (Brookeville, Md./St. Andrew's Episcopal) added seven points and eight rebounds.

Zurn turned in a gutsy performance, playing both games with a sprained foot sustained on Tuesday that kept him on crutches until Friday, the day before the team's conference semifinal against Washington (Md.) College.

“I wasn't going to play up until Thursday or Friday,” said Zurn, who averaged 11.5 points and 6.5 rebounds while shooting 8-for-11 from the floor for the tournament. “But fortunately it started to feel a lot better.”

It was a 48-32 game when junior guard Steve Tolliver hit a pair of free throws for F&M with 14:17 to go. The Bullets still trailed by 15 after a Tolliver trey with 12:24 left before the Bullets, led by Powers, began their comeback.

Powers scored nine of the first 10 points of his team's big run, including a 3-pointer with 10:20 left that cut the lead to single digits. He followed up with a lay-up at the 9:29 mark, before Kennedy drained back-to-back 3's to cut it one. His steal in the backcourt led to his first trey, and his second long ball made it 53-52 with 7:13 left.

Baker answered with a lay-up coming out of a timeout for F&M, but the Bullets came back with four straight points. Zurn came up with a steal and lay-up before Powers gave the Bullets their only lead of the night, following up his own missed shot to make it 56-55 with 5:47 on the clock.

Baker put the Dips up for good, however, on a put-back with 5:25 to go. After a McNally lay-up, Zurn pulled the Bullets to within one (59-58), driving down the left side of the lane before elevating for an emphatic dunk with 4:20 remaining. However, Gettysburg would go cold the rest of the way, when it shot 1-for-8 from the floor.

Milligan hit a jumper with 3:45 to go that made it 61-58, but Franklin & Marshall was unable to put the game away due to poor foul shooting. The Diplomats missed the front end of a 1-and-1 twice, with Brooks hitting a jumper in between. Powers cut it to 63-60 with 32 seconds left after making two free throws before Milligan restored F&M's five-point edge with a pair of foul shots two seconds later. Initially, Milligan missed his second shot, but a Gettysburg lane violation gave him a second chance.

Kennedy answered with a lay-up with 14 ticks showing, making it 65-62, and after Milligan missed a pair of foul shots two seconds later, the Bullets had a chance to tie it. But Powers missed on an off-balance 3-pointer and Baker came down with the rebound before getting fouled with 3.7 seconds left. After missing his first attempt, Baker made the second to clinch the win.

The Diplomats never trailed in the first half and a 6-0 run made it 12-6 with 12:15 left following a Brooks bucket. Gettysburg pulled to within three on three occasions, the last coming on a Powers jumper with 6:54 showing that made it 18-15. The Bullets trailed 22-17 with 5:55 left after another Powers basket, but that's when F&M embarked on a 14-4 run to close the half. Baker tracked down a loose ball and dropped in a lay-up two seconds before the buzzer to give the Diplomats their 15-point halftime lead.

F&M shot 48.5 percent in the opening half while the Bullets connected on 43.5 percent of their field goals. However, Gettysburg was just 1-for7 from beyond the arc.

Brooks scored 11 points in the opening stanza while McNally had eight. Powers led the Bullets with eight first-half points.

Hager provided the team a spark at the beginning of the second half, nailing a pair of 3's to cut it to 11. The Bullets pulled to within nine (38-29) after a lay-up from sophomore forward Tim Lang (Boothwyn, Pa./Garnet Valley) a minute and a half into the period, but a 7-1 run opened up another 15-point lead for the Dips.

“It comes down to one or two plays, and they made one or two more than us,” said Hager, who finished the year with a single-season school record 142 assists and ended his career with 209 helpers – 11th all-time at Gettysburg. “It stinks ending the season on a loss, but we gave it our all, so no disappointments.”

Although his team came up short in its quest for a conference title, Petrie was pleased with his team's performance for the season, considering the fact that his squad graduated the winningest senior class in school history last season.

“We lost four starters, five seniors, three all-conference players, two 1,000-point scorers, and we're back in the championship game?” he said. “They had a couple bad losses, but they hung in there, and we almost came away with it.

“They don't have any reason not to feel proud about what they accomplished.”