Grantham, PA — After playing eight games and patiently waiting two and a half weeks to compete on its home floor for the first time in the 2008-2009 season, things did not go as expected for the Messiah men's basketball team, as the Falcons dropped a pair in this weekend's Messiah College/Hampton Inn Invitational.
Messiah (2-8) fell in overtime to Baptist Bible College by a 75-81 score Friday night, then dropped a 55-72 defeat to Averett University in Saturday's consolation game. The decisions marked only the second and third Messiah losses in the history of the Hampton Inn Invitational, coming on the heels of last year's 66-76 championship loss to Juniata College.
Montclair State University eventually captured the 2008 title, defeating Baptist Bible by a 69-36 score in Saturday's championship game. The Red Hawks handed Averett an 87-76 defeat in Friday night's other first-round contest.
For Messiah, playing in Saturday's consolation did not seem likely — at least in the early goings against Baptist Bible. The Falcons led by a 36-29 score at the half and increased its lead to 11 points (45-34) with 17:01 left in regulation.
A layup from junior Andy Hawk kept the spread at six points (61-55) with 5:17 to play, but stagnating offense would eventually allow the Defenders (3-2) to get back in it. Messiah missed its final six shots from the field and committed three turnovers in the final 4:26 of regulation, all while Baptist Bible made three of its final five shots from the floor. When the Defenders' Tom Waszaj buried a deep three with 42 seconds on the clock, Baptist Bible led by a 64-62 score.
Despite missing a wide-open three from the corner and an acrobatic offensive rebound-layup attempt from junior Kyle Snyder on its next possession, Messiah was not finished. Forced to foul, the Falcons got a gift when the Defenders' Justin Cook missed the front end of a one-and-one opportunity. Following a timeout, senior Jason Miller was fouled driving to the basket with just over two seconds to play. He calmly made both charity tosses, and the game went to overtime.
It was all Baptist Bible in the extra session, however, as the Defenders scored a driving layup on their first possession and never looked back. Six Messiah fouls equated to 14 Baptist Bible free throws in the overtime (the visitors made 12), as the Falcons would trail by as many as eight points with 35 seconds to play. A layup from Hawk with just 10 seconds remaining would provide the final difference.
Junior Jamie Yoder paced Messiah's scoring efforts, charting 19 points on six of 17 shooting from the floor. Hawk added 18 points and nine rebounds, while Snyder finished with 14 points and a game-high 11 boards.
Saturday against an athletic Averett squad, Messiah simply could not come up with enough gas in the tank. An early three pointer from Hawk provided the Falcons with their only lead of the game — 5-4 with 4:01 elapsed — as the Cougars would go on to lead by as many as 15 points in the period before taking a 39-29 lead into the locker room at halftime.
That difference would be as close as Messiah would get in the latter 20 minutes of play, as Averett (5-3) would lead by as many as 20 points. The Cougars would shoot 53.7 percent from the field on the afternoon, marking the sixth time in 10 games that a Messiah opponent had eclipsed the 50 percent field goal shooting plateau.
Snyder (12 points) and Hawk (11 points) again did most of the offensive work for the Falcons — the team's only double-figure scorers on the day.
Snyder was named to the all-tournament team as a result of his play. Montclair State's Daniel McRae earned tournament MVP honors. Montclair's Ken Dudley, Baptist Bible's Khristian Collins and Travis Wash and Averett's Jonathan Rumley rounded off the all-tournament selections.
Messiah will now remain idle through the Christmas holiday, next traveling to Santa Barbara, California to compete in the Westmont College Tom Byron Classic Dec. 29-30. The Falcons will face the host Warriors at 7:30 p.m. (local time) on Mon., Dec. 29. The team will then either play in the consolation game (5:30 p.m.) or the championship game (7:30 p.m.) Tues., Dec. 30. Complete tournament details are available through Westmont's athletics website.
