23 December, 2006
by Ryan Rissmiller
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1st |
2nd |
Final |
| Mount St. Mary’s (2-9) |
29 |
27 |
56 |
| Lafayette (6-7) |
38 |
20 |
58 |
| Kirby Sports Center – Easton, PA |
Boxscore |
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For the second time in the three days, the Lafayette Leopards held on to a lead despite once again being out scored in the second half. Bilal Abdullah, coming off a stellar 15 point performance on Wednesday, topped that with a career high 22 points, going 8-for-13 from the field. Abdullah attacked the rim relentlessly, going 5-for-7 from the charity stripe. Coming in second in scoring was guard Jesper Andersson with 11 points, but not without suffering what may be a huge setback for the Swedish import who has enjoyed a recent coming out party as of late with solid play. With 3:05 left in the first half, Anderrson rolled his right ankle and would not return. Lafayette, already minus guards Paul Cummins and Jamaal Hilliard, needed it’s bench to fill the void; Marcus Harley and Andre Hines gave coach Fran O’hanlon quality minutes off the bench to fill the void.
With a crisp 14-2 run to start the game, the Leopards jumped on the notoriously slow starting Mountaineers right away. Shooting 51.9 percent from the field in the first half, they took a 9-point lead at half. The second half was much more like Lafayette. Going toe to toe with the Mountaineers, despite getting beaten solid on the offensive boards, a photo finish almost forced overtime. Fran O’Hanlon said “good thing there was only 0.9 seonds and not 2.9 seconds†— referring to a rushed open-look lay-up from Mountaineer point guard Kelly Beidler to force overtime. He had 16 points and 7 rebounds.
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| Keys to the Game |
| Key sequence |
Besides the early Lafayette run, the game was back and forth right up until the ending sequence.
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| Key sign it was over |
This game was tight down the stretch. Beidler led the Mountaineers with 16, and he was the go-to guy late in the game. With 0.9 seconds to play, coming off back-to-back timeouts first from Mt St Mary’s, then by O’Hanlon to sub in for defensive purposes. The ball being inbounded from under the hoop, Beidler came off a screen on the left side, with Mat Betley trailing. The weak-side lay-up rimmed out on a clean look, bringing the freshman forward to his knees to end the game and avoid overtime.
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| Key performance |
Bilal Abdullah. He did what it took with 22 points to off set Biedler’s game and, along with leadership from Matt Betley,the Leopards defend their home court to win with 5 out of 6.
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| Key statistic |
Lafayette once again got killed on the boards all night. A 44-23 deficit included 19 offense boards for the more aggressive Mountaineers. Two separate occasions in the second half resulted in an easy rebound dunk with authority from Kelly Biedler.
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| Notes |
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Through 12/21, the Leopards are dead last in the Patriot League in rebound margin. They were minus 8.7 coming into today. The rest of the league is at least in the positive side of the margin Army leading with plus 7.2. A minus-11 game tonight wont help that.
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Lafayette goes on the road on Dec. 28 at Temple, then out to San Diego State Dec. 30. The Leopards are one game off of a .500 mark.
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