Senior
Dylan Edgar hit a jumper with 6.2 seconds remaining Wednesday to propel the Shippensburg University men's basketball team to a come-from-behind victory at Clarion, 73-72, as it concluded its PSAC crossover schedule from Tippin Gymnasium with its first road win of the season.
Shippensburg (7-6, 3-6 PSAC) trailed by seven points, 68-61, with 3:19 remaining before closing on a 12-4 run. SU also trailed by six points with 2:04 remaining but hit all five of its shots in the final three minutes of play, including a pair of three-pointers by freshman
Dustin Sleva.
Edgar's jumper from about 10 feet bounced high off the rim before ultimately falling in, leaving SU to defend a final chance from Clarion (6-6, 4-5). Having only committed four fouls in the half, however, the Raiders gave a foul with two seconds remaining to create another in-bounds entry for the Golden Eagles. The resulting three-point attempt at the horn was no good.
Shippensburg shot 60.4 percent from the field, its best single-game rate since Nov. 29, 2011, including a 62-percent clip in the second half. The Raiders trailed for the majority of the second half until junior
A.J. Maun hit a three-pointer at the 6:56 mark that knotted the score at 54-54. Maun was 3-of-4 from three-point range, scoring a career-high nine points.
Clarion shot 50 percent in the second half and immediately countered with a 9-2 run that would eventually lead to the decisive final stretch. The Golden Eagles had four players in double figures and got a game-high 27 points off the bench from Justin Grant, who was 12-of-15 from the field and a perfect 3-of-3 from three-point range.
Edgar finished with 18 points on 9-of-12 shooting while grabbing a game-high seven rebounds. He is 22 points away from 1,000 for his career. Junior
Jay Hardy began to work his way out of a shooting slump with 10 points on a 4-of-9 effort, including a pair of three-pointers.
Wednesday was a tale of two halves for sophomore point guard
Abe Massaley. At the intermission, Massaley had just two points, two assists and six of SU's 14 first-half turnovers.
In the second half, Massaley was 5-of-6 from the field and had seven assists and two steals without committing a turnover. Of SU's final six possessions, Massaley either scored or assisted on a successful field goal, including Edgar's go-ahead jumper. He finished with 12 points, nine assists and a season-high four steals.
Sleva finished with eight points, five rebounds and four assists in another durable effort. Senior
Sam Pygatt had four points, five rebounds and three assists.
SU rallied despite finishing the night just 1-of-5 from the free-throw line. Freshman
Justin McCarthur made 1-of-2 attempts with 10:10 still to go in the first half, and that was it for the Raiders from the charity stripe. It was SU's quietest output at the free-throw line since it went 1-for-2 in the entirety of a 63-45 win over Lock Haven on Nov. 17, 2008.
The Raiders now lead the all-time series, 25-24.
Shippensburg hosts Mansfield at 3 p.m. Saturday from Heiges Field House.