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by Bryn Swartz, GoMessiah.com reporter
Grantham, PA - It sure is good to be a Falcon fan. Following a double-header sweep of Arcadia on Saturday night, it's been 16 straight games combined for the women's and men's teams without a loss. For the men on Saturday, the win kept the Falcons tied atop the Commonwealth Conference with a 5-1 record. Their 67-58 defeat of Arcadia was their seventh consecutive victory.
"Arcadia is a scrappy group," said Messiah Falcons head coach
Rick Van Pelt. "They're really hard to contain. They penetrate really well, better than what I thought from watching film. We had a hard time in the first half containing them and getting good pressure on contesting shots, and they shot the lights out of us in the first half. Thankfully, we also shot fairly well."
A back-and-forth first half saw the Falcons trailing 36-34 at intermission. The Falcons did hold a lead of as many as six points through the first 20 minutes, but Arcadia shot 15-23 (65.3%) from the field, including 6-7 from the free throw line. Messiah kept pace by shooting 14-29 (48.3%) from the field.
In the second half, the Falcons and Knight continued the back-and-forth battle. A three-pointer from senior
Trey Ritzman tied the game at 40 with 14:11 remaining, but the Knights countered by knocking their only shot of the game from downtown.
From there, the Falcons went on a 12-4 run behind a momentous three-pointer from sophomore
Brad Bolen.
The five-point lead, held with just over seven minutes to play, would be short-lived as Arcadia stormed back to take a 53-52 lead with 5:03 remaining.
"In the second half, we defended better but didn't shoot too well," said Van Pelt. "The difference really came down to some free- throw shooting, and we were able to get into the double-bonus to knock down some shots."
Van Pelt couldn't have been more right. The Falcons closed the game with a 16-5 run, including 11 points from the free-throw line to earn the Commonwealth victory. In the last two minutes alone, the Falcons outscored Arcadia 10-2, with freshman Zach Hoy going 4-4 from the charity stripe.
"We've got a group of guys that just keep competing," said Van Pelt, whose team has rebounded from a 4-5 start to the season to sit at 11-5. "They have confidence, although I thought we weren't as on edge' tonight as we needed to be. Once the game got on the line, you saw a little bit of edginess to them. We came up with some loose balls, and we were able to make plays down the stretch when we weren't making plays earlier in the game."
The Falcons were led by sophomore
David Fernandez, who scored 16 and collected six rebounds, four assists, and two blocks. Fernandez provided two highlight-reel plays: a thunderous dunk in the first half; and a crushing blocked shot in the fourth quarter as the Falcons were clining to a 61-56 lead with under a minute to play.
Senior
Jeremiah Runkle scored 15 points on 6-11 shooting and added eight rebounds. Junior
Derek Mosley scored nine on three shots from downtown. Bolen scored seven, with Ritzman and sophomore
Christyan DeVan each scoring six points.
The Falcons held Arcadia to just 8-24 shooting (33.3 percent) in the second half, a significant improvement over the 65.2 percent allowed in the first half. The Falcons also won the rebounding battle, 31 to 30, and committed six fewer turnovers, 12 to Arcadia's 18.
With the loss, Arcadia falls to 9-8 on the season, including 2-4 in the Commonwealth.
"We're now the hunted," said Van Pelt, referring to his team's four straight conference victories. "I think every game there's going to be that 'chippiness' in the game where teams really want to beat us and knock us off. We've just got to learn how to play with that bulls-eye on our back and still be able to play solid, sound, and fundamental basketball the way we play it, with good preparation leading up to each game."
The Falcons (11-5, 5-1) have four days until their next game, which will be against Alvernia University (12-4, 4-2) on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m in Grantham.
