CENTER VALLEY, Pa. – The Gettysburg College men's basketball team used its top defensive effort of the season to earn a 56-50 victory over Alvernia in the consolation game of the DeSales University Al Senavitis Memorial Tournament Saturday afternoon.
 
The Bullets (3-7) held the Wolves to 29.2 percent shooting – the lowest mark by a Gettysburg opponent this season. In addition, Alvernia's 50 points were the least allowed by the Bullets for the year.
 
Sophomore guard Nick Antolini (Babylon, N.Y./Babylon) was named to the all-tournament team for Gettysburg, scoring 20 points on 8-of-16 shooting while knocking down a trio of 3-pointers. It was the second 20-point outing in the last three games for Antolini, who also tied a career-high with eight rebounds.
 
Junior center Luke Cooper (Medford, N.J./Shawnee) hauled in a career-best 16 rebounds, the most by a Bullet since Connor Poston '14 grabbed 17 boards in a 70-65 win at Johns Hopkins on Dec. 3, 2013. As a team, Gettysburg out-rebounded Alvernia 43-34.
 
Senior forward Cameron Stewart (Sydney, Australia/Newington College) added a season-high 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting for the Bullets while sophomore guard Danny Duffey (Huntingdon Valley, Pa./Lower Moreland) contributed career-highs of 12 points and six rebounds. Six of Duffey's points came in a key 8-0 run late in the game.
 
Alex Shippen led Alvernia (3-8) with 17 points and seven assists. Nick Youngkin and Calil Moultrie contributed 14 and 13 points for the Wolves, who shot 10-for-46 from 3-point range.
 
In a tight game in which neither side led by more than eight, Alvernia took a 47-46 lead on a tip-in from Anthony Hedgepeth with 5:32 left. However, the Bullets would dig in defensively and hold the Wolves scoreless for nearly five minutes. In the meantime, Gettysburg put together its aforementioned 8-0 run, which started with a driving lay-up from Duffey that put the Bullets in front to stay with 4:29 to go.
 
Stewart then backed in for a lay-up with 3:47 remaining before Duffey capped the run, hitting a pair of free throws and knocking down a pull-up jumper to make it 54-47 with 1:27 showing. Hedgepeth connected on a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left pull Alvernia within four, but Cooper answered with a quick lay-up seven seconds later to set the final score.
 
Gettysburg never trailed in the first half and used an 8-0 run to assume its largest lead of the game (17-9) with 7:01 on the clock. An Antolini lay-up made it 21-14 with 2:16 left, but the Wolves scored the last seven points of the half and it was a 21-21 tie at the intermission.
 
Alvernia continued its surge in the second half, when it scored the first points of the period to assume its first lead of the day. The Wolves pushed their advantage to six (33-27) after a Shippen triple with 16:05 left, but the Bullets would have the answer in the form of Antolini, who scored 10 straight points for Gettysburg early in the period. He tied the game with a conventional 3-point play with 15:12 to play, and his lay-up two minutes later pulled the Bullets within one.
 
The lead would change hands five more times the rest of the way, starting with an old-fashioned 3-point play from Stewart that made it 38-36 with 11:56 left. An and-1 from Shippen put the Wolves back in front less than a minute later before Duffey answered with a bucket that handed the Bullets a 40-39 advantage with 9:17 showing. Stewart pushed Gettysburg's lead to 46-41 with a lay-up at the 7:37 mark, but Alvernia rallied with a 6-0 run capped by Hedgepeth's tip-in, setting up Gettysburg's late defensive stand.
 
The Bullets return home on Wednesday, when they host Scranton at 7 p.m. in their final regular-season non-conference game of the year.