Grantham, PA — As has been well documented on this site, the Messiah College men's basketball team has made a collective living off of superior second-half play in recent times.
Facing Lebanon Valley College Tuesday night in the MAC Commonwealth Conference opener for both teams, things didn't deviate all that much.
Trailing by a 31-26 score at halftime, Messiah utilized a 16-0 surge to open the second half en route to a 63-54 win, the squad's seventh straight victory and fifth consecutive league-opening win. After shooting just 30.4 percent from the field in the game's first 20 minutes, the Falcons erupted to connect on 11 of 21 second-half attempts (52.4 percent) all while holding the Fighting Dutchmen to a nine of 27 second-half shooting clip (33.3 percent).
“I guess that's how we're going to win games,” said Rick Van Pelt, Messiah head coach. “We've got to hold our opponent under 40 percent shooting and keep working at it. We're certainly not going to outscore anyone.”
Van Pelt's squad prescribed to that theory for the fifth time in its last seven contests Tuesday night, eventually allowing just 19 of 53 shot attempts to fall for Lebanon Valley (6-10, 0-1). The Falcons stayed close after the first period of play thanks in large part to the free throw line, where the team buried 12 of 13 first-half charity tosses (92.3 percent). That stat helped offset a woeful seven of 23 shooting performance from the field (30.4 percent) and 14 first-half turnovers, numbers that Van Pelt yearned to improve.
“We talked about a lot at halftime,” Van Pelt said. “We talked about defending the three (-point shot), them hurting us on middle penetration and rebounding. On the other end, it looked like we were running offense for the sake of running offense. The thing we emphasized the most was toughness, and that's probably what the guys responded to the best.”
Like so many times before, Messiah (12-4, 1-0) would own the second period from the outset. Junior Jason Miller opened the scoring just nine seconds in with a driving layup, while a three pointer from sophomore Andy Hawk tied the game at 31-31 with 18:42 to play.
Another Miller layup was followed by a post bucket from Hawk, and the Falcons were rolling. When freshman center Colton Reitz buried a deep three from the top of the key at the 15:13 mark, Brubaker Auditorium was rocking. A layup from sophomore Kyle Snyder made it a 42-31 Falcons' lead with 14:16 to play, and Lebanon Valley had yet to notch a point in the second half.
A three ball and a jumper from LVC's Kyle Enoch and a post bucket from the Dutchmen's Eric Humphrey would pull the visitors within a 42-38 score just two and a half minutes later, but a stifling Messiah defense quickly asserted itself once again. Lebanon Valley would score just six points over the game's next nine and a half minutes, eventually trailing by a 54-42 score with just over two minutes to play.
With LVC fouling to stop the clock, Messiah continued to hit free throws, nailing seven of its final nine attempts to keep the visitors at an arm's reach throughout.
Hawk led the team with 13 points and 13 boards, the latter equaling a career-high. Miller added 12 points and a career-high seven takeaways, while Snyder scored seven points and grabbed seven boards.
Messiah outrebounded Lebanon Valley by a 42 to 24 difference, the team's largest rebounding margin of the season to date.
“We still had too many turnovers (22), but a lot of that was our ineffectiveness offensively in the first half (14),” Van Pelt said. “Overall, we were much better with our execution in the second half. With conference play, the game becomes more physical. I think there will be more physical games (than this one), but our guys need to understand you can't expect a foul (call). I hope as we get more consistent with practice time now, we'll get better and better. We had a tough stretch with eight days off (between games), where I hope now we can kind of mesh offensively like we were before.”
The Falcons will pick up the conference grind again Saturday, when the team travels to rival Elizabethtown College. The Blue Jays — ranked 25th in the nation in the latest D3hoops.com Top 25 Poll — lost a heartbreaking 79-78 overtime decision to Lycoming College Tuesday night. Saturday's game time is set for 4 p.m.
