CENTER VALLEY, Pa. – DeSales outscored Gettysburg 11-0 to start the second half and the host Bulldogs handed the Gettysburg College men's basketball team a 72-49 setback in the opening round of the Al Senavitis Memorial Tournament on Friday evening.
 
The Bullets (2-7) will now face either Alvernia or Drew in the tournament consolation game on Saturday at 2 p.m.
 
Sophomore guard Nick Lord (Millersville, Pa./Penn Manor) scored a team-high 15 points for Gettysburg, which was facing DeSales for just the second time in program history. The Bulldogs also won the inaugural meeting, 72-65, in the first round of the 2003-04 ECAC Southern Division Tournament. Senior forward Cameron Stewart (Sydney, Australia/Newington College) contributed nine points for the Bullets while junior center Luke Cooper (Medford, N.J./Shawnee) notched a career-high three blocked shots.
 
Kweku Dawson-Amoah posted 19 points and six rebounds to lead DeSales (9-1), which won its eighth game in a row. Luke Connaghan added 12 points for the Bulldogs, who held a 42-21 rebound advantage.
 
The Bullets led for nearly the entire first half before DeSales went ahead to stay with a 13-3 run to end the period.
 
Gettysburg enjoyed its largest lead of the night when it led by five twice early in the opening stanza. A conventional 3-point play from Lord made it 11-6 before sophomore guard Danny Duffey (Huntingdon Valley, Pa./Lower Moreland) dropped in a lay-up to make it 13-8 with 13:10 left.
 
The Bulldogs took their first lead at the 7:24 mark, as a 3-pointer made it 17-15. But the Bullets came back with the next five points, and a triple from junior guard Alec Warren (Medford, N.J./Shawnee) put Gettysburg up 20-17. Cooper handed the Bullets their final lead of the night (22-20) when he converted a lay-in with 5:06 left, but that's when DeSales used its 10-point run to close the half to assume a 33-25 advantage at the break.
 
Gettysburg went cold to start the second period, coming up empty on its first six possessions while DeSales put together its decisive run. The Bulldogs upped their lead to 20, but the Bullets used a 9-2 spurt to pull within 13. Lord kicked off the surge with a pair of free throws and capped it with a 3-pointer that made it 52-39 with 12:01 remaining. DeSales would pull away, however, scoring the next eight points and ending the game on a 20-10 run.