Grantham, PA — As a near-capacity crowd watched the final seconds tick away in Saturday's Albright College – Messiah College men's basketball match-up at Brubaker Auditorium, the feeling in the historic building was almost palpable.
It wasn't supposed to end like this.
Messiah suffered a 70-82 defeat to the Lions, which — when coupled with Lebanon Valley College's 72-68 win at Lycoming College — kept the Falcons from qualifying for the MAC Commonwealth Conference Tournament for the first time since the 2003-2004 season.
Almost stunningly, Messiah's season had come to an end on senior day, as upperclassmen Johnny Boyd and Darryl Brown slowly walked off the Brubaker Auditorium floor for the final time at the game's conclusion.
“Of course, we are very disappointed,” said Rick Van Pelt, Messiah head coach. “We had a very good season, but we did not have a very good ending. And that is probably the most disappointing thing. We didn't play the brand of basketball we felt we were capable of playing late in the year. It's definitely not how you'd like to finish.”
In the ultra-tight MAC Commonwealth standings, Messiah (15-10, 4-6) suffered a double-whammy to earn its fate Saturday: The Falcons would have qualified for the league tournament with either a win over Albright or a Lebanon Valley loss to Lycoming, while a combination of results could have allowed Messiah to finish as high as third in the final conference standings.
Instead, Messiah got down by a 12-1 score against Albright while never leading on the afternoon. LVC, meanwhile, snuck past league-leading Lycoming with clutch play on the road.
The end result placed Messiah in fifth place in the MAC Commonwealth, and on the outside looking in for the post-season tournament.
“We were really, really close to making this a great season,” Van Pelt said. “For us to win 15 games was respectable, but we just wanted that chance to play in the (conference) tournament. Just that opportunity would have made this a great season, in my opinion.”
Early struggles offensively compounded things for Van Pelt's team Saturday, as Messiah missed its first eight shots from the floor in falling behind by the 12-1 count to Albright (16-7, 6-4). The Lions led by a 16-3 score with 13:52 to play in the first half and by a 19-5 difference with 12:00 remaining, but slowly the Falcons began to chip away. A three pointer from junior Drew Sneeringer cut the lead to just six points — 23-17 — with 8:23 on the game clock, while the Lions' lead was just 36-27 with under 15 seconds to play.
A dagger of a three pointer at the halftime buzzer from Albright's Zac Schaffer put the visitors up by a 39-27 count at the intermission, however, and again the Falcons would have to play catch-up.
After keeping the margin between 10 and 12 points for the first 10 minutes of the second half, Messiah made its most prominent run of the contest. A post bucket from sophomore Josh Curtin pulled Messiah within a 57-49 difference with 10:13 to play, while a traditional three-point play from Brown cut that difference to 57-52 just moments later.
When Boyd knocked in his second three of the half with 6:51 to play, Messiah trailed by just a 61-59 score and Brubaker started rocking.
A subsequent layup from Albright's Tom Murphy quieted the crowd, however, and ended the Falcons' best push. Messiah came up empty on its next two offensive trips, and the Lions' lead was built back to 67-59 with 5:15 to play.
And while Van Pelt's squad would make just enough baskets to keep things entertaining, a lack of a big defensive play foiled the potential comeback. Messiah trimmed the lead to six points on three occasions in the game's final 3:22, only to have Albright answer with interior scores.
The visitors then kept the spread in tact by shooting 12 free throws in the game's final 1:35, making nine.
Brown led Messiah with 17 points in his final game as a collegian, grabbing a team-leading eight rebounds as well. Boyd notched double-figures for the fourth time in the team's final five contests, scoring 13 on five of eight shooting. Curtin added 12 points on a six for seven effort from the floor, while Sneeringer tallied nine points.
“Today's game was won in the post, plain and simple,” Van Pelt said. “We could not defend as well as we wanted to inside. We spent a lot of time on the action (in practice), but we had trouble.”
Perhaps as a result of its efficiency inside, Albright connected on 56.5 percent of its total field goals on the day (26 of 46), while Messiah made just 24 of 56 (42.9 percent). In the Falcons' final five games of the year, the team allowed opponents to shoot at clips of 48.8 percent, 51 percent, 51 percent, 49 percent and 56.5 percent. On the season, Messiah allowed opponents just a composite 44.2 percent shooting clip.
“If you would have told me before (Saturday's) game that we'd only turn the ball over 10 times and allow Albright just three offensive rebounds, I would have said we'd win the game,” Van Pelt said. “For whatever reason, we just didn't seem to keep the same focus defensively that we had earlier in the season.”
Van Pelt said he will now turn his attention to the off-season in both recruiting and player development, as the program looks to move ahead after saying goodbye to Boyd and Brown. That tandem conclude their careers with a 73-33 overall record, the most wins of any class since Messiah joined the NCAA Division III ranks in the mid-1980's.
“We will certainly miss Johnny and Darryl for a lot of reasons, including their abilities on the basketball court,” Van Pelt said. “To lose a shooter like Johnny and a competitor with the athleticism and desire of Darryl, it will be tough. But we had a number of young guys that will return with a year under their belt, and we're going to challenge them to become better over the off-season.”
Albright earned the conference's two seed with the win Saturday, and will host Widener University in the first round of the league tournament. Lycoming will turn around and host LVC again, just days after the teams' meeting this afternoon.
Messiah concludes the year as the league's fifth-place team ahead of Elizabethtown College, which finished with a 2-8 conference mark. E'Town entered the league schedule ranked 25th in the nation with a 13-1 record overall.
“We had some great memories along the way this year, both on and off the floor,” Van Pelt said. “We had some very big wins, and we battled with some awfully good teams. We just didn't finish how we'd like to, and at the moment, that's really what's in our minds.”
