Box Score

COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Senior guard Sean Gordon (Broomall, Pa./Malvern Prep) scored a career-high 23 points, including a 3-pointer on the run with less than a second left, but the Bullets came up a point short in a 76-75 loss at Ursinus College in a Centennial Conference (CC) men's basketball tilt Tuesday evening.
 
The Bullets (7-5, 3-2 CC), playing their first conference game since Dec. 6, led 70-64 with 5:15 left but were held to five points the rest of the way.
 
Gordon shot 6-for-8 from 3-point range, tying his career-high output from beyond the arc.
 
Sophomore forward Cody Kiefer (Gettysburg, Pa./Gettysburg) added 11 points for the Bullets while junior forward Kevin Gladstone (Havertown, Pa./Haverford) contributed 10 points. Sophomore forward Tanner Kirkpatrick (Carlisle, Pa./Cumberland Valley) grabbed seven rebounds.
 
Malik Draper scored a game-high 30 points to lead Ursinus (4-8, 1-4 CC).
 
The back-and-forth contest featured seven ties and 16 lead changes. In a tightly-officiated game, a total of 45 fouls were called.
 
Gettysburg scored seven straight points at the foul line to account for a 7-0 run that gave the Bullets their late six-point advantage. But the Bears answered with a 7-0 surge of their own, and it was the start of a 10-2 run that gave Ursinus a 74-72 lead with 45 seconds left after a pair of Matt Knowles free throws.
 
After the Bullets missed a 3-pointer, Knowles was fouled again with 16 ticks showing, and he split a pair of shots to nudge Ursinus' lead to 75-72. A potential game-tying triple from Gettysburg was off the mark and Ursinus again pulled in the rebound. Draper went on to hit the second of two free throws to hand the Bears a four-point advantage.
 
Gordon then raced the ball up the floor and, attempting to draw contact, buried an off-balance heave at the top of the arc. The Bullets were able to foul Knowles with 0.8 seconds left, but after missing both shots he controlled the rebound as time expired.
 
The opening eight and a half minutes of the game featured saw two ties and six lead changes, and a Patrick Mekongo lay-up put the Bears up 24-18 with 10:51 on the clock. But Gettysburg answered with an 11-1 run to assume a 29-25 advantage with 4:58 showing. Four different Bullets scored during the run, with Gordon netting five along the way.
 
Gordon splashed in his third trey of the half with 1:12 remaining to put the Orange and Blue up 37-32 before Draper's buzzer-beating lay-up made it 37-34 at the half.
 
The Bullets led by as many as six early in the second half, but a 16-4 Ursinus run that lasted over nearly a five-minute stretch gave the Bears a 57-50 advantage with 10:43 to go. But Gettysburg answered again, this time with an 11-0 run to go up 61-57 after a steal and lay-up from senior guard Joe Emerusabe (Derwood, Md./Magruder) with 7:52 remaining.
 
The see-saw affair continued with a 5-0 Ursinus spurt, as the Bears went back in front (62-61) on a Steve Leonard trey with 7:13 left before the Bullets went on their final run a minute later.
 
Gettysburg plays its first home game in 31 days when it hosts Muhlenberg College at 3 p.m. on Saturday in another Centennial Conference affair.