Box Score WESTMINSTER, Md. – The Gettysburg College men's basketball team saw its three-game winning streak come to an end with a 59-50 Centennial Conference (CC) loss at McDaniel College Wednesday evening.
After trailing by as much as 16, the Bullets pulled to within six (48-42) with 3:11 remaining following a 3-pointer from sophomore forward
Cody Kiefer (Gettysburg, Pa./Gettysburg). But McDaniel answered with a 7-2 spurt and the Green Terror held on for its fourth-straight victory.
Sophomore forward
Tanner Kirkpatrick (Carlisle, Pa./Cumberland Valley) paced the Bullets (10-6, 6-3 CC) with 15 points while senior guard
Sean Gordon (Broomall, Pa./Malvern Prep) dished out eight assists without committing a turnover. He also became just the seventh player in program history to reach 500 points, 300 rebounds, and 200 assists, pushing his current totals to 528, 301, and 230 respectively.
The Bullets are now tied with McDaniel (11-4, 6-3 CC) for fourth place in the Centennial Conference standings.
Wesley Brooks shot 4-of-6 from 3-point range and led the Green Terror with 14 points while Tim Stewart added 12 points and nine rebounds. Phillip Perry contributed 11 points for McDaniel.
Gettysburg never led, and the Green Terror opened up some breathing room early on with a 9-0 run to build a 15-6 advantage with 12:05 left in the first half.
McDaniel pushed its lead to 12 (22-10) before Gettysburg used a 7-0 run to pull to within five on a Kirkpatrick alley-oop lay-up with 6:06 showing.
Kirkpatrick splashed in a 3-pointer with 3:44 left in the half to make it a 30-22 game, but it would turn out to be the Bullets' final points of the stanza. Brooks buried a trey at the buzzer to put the Terror up 33-22 at the intermission.
Both teams struggled offensively early in the second half, with the two sides combining for just nine points in the opening six minutes. Later in the period, a Stewart bucket put McDaniel up 46-30, equaling the Terror's largest lead of the night. However, that's when Gettysburg climbed back into it with a 12-2 run. Freshman guard
Alex Kaslander (Verona, N.J./Verona) kicked off the spurt with a 3-pointer, then fed Kiefer for a lay-up that made it 48-37. Kirkpatrick and Gordon followed with one bucket apiece before Kiefer capped the run with his 3-pointer that closed the deficit to six.
Andrew Merlo answered with a big 3-pointer for McDaniel with 2:38 left that made it 51-42, burying a triple that snapped nearly a three-minute scoring drought for the Green Terror and was the team's first field goal in over six minutes. But the Bullets were unable to get closer than eight the rest of the way, as the Green Terror made 8 of its next 10 free throws to build a 12-point advantage (59-47) with 44 seconds to go.
Gettysburg continues its season on Saturday, when it hosts Washington College at 3 p.m. in a Centennial Conference match-up.
