Box Score

YORK, Pa. – Freshman Tanner Kirkpatrick (Carlisle, Pa./Cumberland Valley) scored a game-high 19 points and sophomore guard Sango Amolo (Falls Church, Va./McLean) made a crucial block in the closing seconds as the Gettysburg College men's basketball team hung on down the stretch to pick up its first victory of the season, winning 59-57 at York (Pa.) College in non-conference action Wednesday evening.

The Bullets (1-2) led by as much as 10 with four minutes remaining only to see the Spartans (1-2) whittle the deficit all the way down to two with 17 seconds left. But Amolo blocked a shot in the lane, came down with the rebound, and fed freshman forward Cody Kiefer (Gettysburg, Pa./Gettysburg) on the right wing. Kiefer dribbled to midcourt before finding a streaking Joe Emerusabe (Derwood, Md./Magruder), who glided in for an uncontested lay-up to make it 59-55 with six seconds left. York scored the final points with a tip-in at the buzzer.

Kirkpatrick shot 9-for-12 from the field while Kiefer added 13 points. Amolo also reached double figures with 11 points while handing out six assists. After shooting just 33.3 percent in the first half the Bullets heated up to shoot 62.5 percent in the second period and finished at 47.1 percent for the night.

Matt McNeely paced York with a double-double of 18 points and 12 rebounds.

It was a tight game most of the way before the Bullets opened up some breathing room late in the contest. Gettysburg would push its lead to 10 on two occasions, the last coming when sophomore guard Joey Kacmarsky (Westfield, N.J./Rutgers Prep) found a wide-open Kirkpatrick for a lay-up, making it 55-45 with 4:01 left. But cold foul shooting would hurt the Bullets, who missed six straight at the charity stripe inside the final 2:35. In the meantime, a 10-2 York run, capped by a Mike Matthews jumper in the lane, made it 57-55 with 17 seconds left.

After a York timeout, the Spartans came up with a steal in the backcourt. But that's when Amolo made his big block and rebound.

The Bullets trailed just once in the opening half, when it was 4-2 just over two minutes into the contest. But Gettysburg used a pair of short runs to take control for the remainder of the stanza. An 8-0 spurt, capped by back-to-back 3-pointers from sophomore forward Kevin Gladstone (Havertown, Pa./Haverford) and Amolo, made it 10-4, and a 7-0 surge, punctuated by a Kirkpatrick trey from the top of the arc, put the Orange and Blue up 17-8 with 7:53 showing.

York edged to within three (22-19) with 1:17 on the clock, but Amolo's acrobatic lay-up with nine seconds left gave the Bullets a 24-19 halftime advantage.

York opened the second half on a 13-5 run to take its first lead since it was 4-2, prompting a Bullet timeout.

The Spartans pushed their lead to 35-31 with 14:26 remaining but that's when Kiefer and Kirkpatrick fueled a 12-2 Bullet run. Kiefer scored eight of the points during the outburst, including a fastbreak dunk he initiated with a steal near midcourt. His 3-ball from the left corner made it 43-37 with 9:48 to go, and a pair of Amolo free throws made it 53-43 with 4:53 left, setting up the dramatic finish.

Gettysburg plays its Centennial Conference opener on Saturday, when it visits Swarthmore College at 3 p.m.