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Diplomats fall to Garnet in overtime

Swarthmore outscored Franklin & Marshall 14-4 in overtime to defeat the Diplomats 73-63 in Centennial Conference action Saturday afternoon.

The win breaks an 11-game F&M winning streak and marks Swarthmore's first victory over F&M since 2007.

F&M led early with an 8-2 edge four minutes into the game, but it was shortlived, as the Garnet outscored F&M 21-2 over a 10-minute span. F&M responded with 13-7 run during the final six minutes of the half to send the game into the break with the Garnet holding a 30-23 edge.

Swarthmore hit the first bucket to start the second before the Diplomats rattled off nine-straight to tie the game at 32-32. Jon Salandra's jumper two minutes later gave F&M a 36-35 lead and the Diplomats increased their advantage to three, 42-39, on a Matt Porter bucket at 11:43.

The Garnet countered with six unanswered points to go up 45-42, but F&M put together a 10-2 scoring spurt to go up five, 52-47, with 7:24 remaining in the contest. Max Brewer's three-pointer at 4:37 increased F&M's lead to 57-51, but the Garnet tied the game at 57-57 with 1:55 left to play.

Salandra hit two from the stripe at 1:20 to put F&M up 59-57 and Jay Kober connected on the Garnet's next possession to tie game before Morgan Lee's jumper as time expired rolled out of the rim to send the game into the extra period.

Hayk Gyokchyan hit a jumper nine seconds into overtime to make it 61-59, but it was all Swarthmore after that as the Garnet netted 14 unanswered points and kept the Diplomats off the board for more than four minutes in overtime.

Salandra finished with a season-high 23 points and pulled down 13 boards for his sixth double-double of the season. Matt Porter hit 3-of-4 from line and finished with 11 points while Brandon Beckford and Lee both netted eight.

Four players hit double figures for Swarthmore, Joe Keedy leading the way with 23 points. Kober had 17, Will Gates finished with 16 and Jordan Federer netted 11 points for the Garnet.

Hood 69, Elizabethtown 52: Frontcourt mates Cameron Cook and Jeremy Veres combined for 42 points to lead Hood to the Commonwealth Conference victory.

Cook started the game with a three-pointer 1:57 into play, but was held to six points over the remainder of the half. Both he and Veres, got it going offensively in the second half, with 16 and 11 points, respectively.

Elizabethtown (4-12 CC, 7-16), which beat Hood in the teams' first meeting in December on a last-second shot by Ben Cable, looked poised to play the Blazers (8-8, 14-9) tough again in the opening 10 minutes. Andrew Mantz scored six of his team-high 12 points as the Blue Jays went in front 8-7 with 14:17 left in the first half.

The Jays, though, would be stuck on eight points for the next five minutes as they missed five straight shots and committed three turnovers.

Hood called on the long ball to rip off 14 unanswered points and go up 21-8. Cook hit a pair of threes while Justin Bowens and Matt Galloway each added one in the run.

The Jays trailed 31-21 at the break, but Cable scored six of his team's first eight points out of the locker room and Joe Bodnar's long-range basket with 12:42 to go gave E-town a 15-7 run that cut Hood's lead to 38-36.

But an ensuing 18-2 Hood run was too much to overcome. Cook scored 21 of his game-high 25 points on 3-point field goals.

In addition to 12 points, five boards and three blocked shots from Mantz, the Blue Jays got 10 points from Will Schlosser. Cable and Lee Eckert scored six points each.n