Glenside, PA — At the beginning of the season, Messiah head coach
Rick Van Pelt projected that Arcadia University would get at least one Commonwealth Conference win.
It won't come against Messiah.
The Falcons rode a career-high 21 points from junior center Colton Reitz to hang a 66-56 defeat on the Knights at the Kuch Center Saturday, keeping Arcadia winless in league play while vaulting Messiah to sole possession of third place in the conference standings — all with just three regular-season games remaining.
Messiah (14-7, 7-4) grabbed a 31-21 lead at the half and led by as many as 26 points in the final 20 minutes, substituting liberally down the stretch for a final score that was not descriptive of the game's lopsidedness.
“We played pretty well today,” Van Pelt said. “Defensively I thought we were pretty good, and I felt we were pretty well prepared for what Arcadia wanted to do. It was a good win on the road. Arcadia is athletic and hard to guard one-on-one.”
Reitz may have been the toughest match-up on the floor, as the 6-6 Fredericksburg, Pa. native had 12 of the Falcons' 31 points at the half, making five of 10 shots from the floor.
Reitz was then the ignition point of a 29-13 Messiah run that blew the game open early in the second half, scoring seven of the Falcons' first 10 points in the period. Junior Tyler Ritzman then carried the load from there, scoring eight points in less than two minutes, turning a 43-30 ballgame into a 51-30 affair with 12:45 to play.
Senior Jamie Yoder then concluded the run, scoring seven straight points, making it a 60-34 ballgame with 8:55 to play — effectively sending the majority of the Kuch Center crowd to the exits.
Messiah still led by 16 points (64-48) with just under three minutes to go, but a late spurt from Arcadia (6-16, 0-12) trimmed things to the final margin, as the Knights connected on three of their final four shots from the floor in the game's final 2:09.
Reitz finished by making eight of 16 shots from the field while grabbing five boards in 28 minutes of action. His 21 points supplanted his previous career-best of 18, set in a 69-64 overtime loss at Elizabethtown College on Dec. 5 of this season.
“Colton was big, literally,” Van Pelt said. “They had a really hard time matching up with him. He dwarfed them. If you would ask him, he'd tell you that he missed some shots in the first half that he thought he should have made. But then, in the second half, he made some moves – spins, up and unders – that were pretty impressive.”
Reitz had plenty of help, as Yoder finished with 14 points on five of eight shooting while Ritzman scored 13 on a five of nine effort. Freshman Chris Yoder scored 10, while senior Kyle Snyder added six and a game-best seven rebounds.
Arcadia's Khalief Trawick matched Reitz in scoring 21, but Messiah's 35 to 23 advantage in overall rebounding and eight to two lead in made trifectas proved to be the ultimate difference, as nearly all other statistical categories were virtually even.
“I've been saying that Arcadia has a (conference) win in their future, and I was hoping it wasn't going to come against us,” Van Pelt reiterated Saturday night. “Now, I really hope they can get at least one.”
An Arcadia win would now only help Messiah, as the neck-and-neck Commonwealth standings continue to be a grind: The Falcons' 7-4 league record is only a game and a half out of first place, but it's also a game and a half out of fifth place as well.
Van Pelt's group now prepares for an epic final week of the regular season, as last week's mid-Atlantic blizzards have forced the Falcons into a rare three-game-in-five-days predicament: Messiah will host Lycoming College Tuesday before hosting Lebanon Valley College Thursday. The team will then travel to Albright College next Saturday before — hopefully — gearing up for the post-season Commonwealth Conference Tournament.
“We've got a big week coming up,” Van Pelt said. “The nice thing is that we've got two of the three games at home, which gives us a little bit more time to prepare in regards to practices and walk-throughs. It's not ideal, but we'll manage.”
Messiah will host Lyco — a team currently second in the league with an 8-3 record — in Brubaker Auditorium Tuesday night at 8 p.m.
