Grantham, PA - The Messiah men's basketball team ended an eight game losing streak with a 66-60 win over the Albright Lions on Sunday evening. Messiah held a lead for all 40 minutes and led by as many as 18 points early in the second-half.

Jimmy Brackett paced the Falcons with his first career double-double. He grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds while scoring 13 points. Geoff Boyle also added 13 points for the Falcons in the victory.
 
Messiah dominated the pace of play in the first-half. The Falcons allowed just 13 points through the first 20 minutes. The first five minutes saw the Falcons jump out to an early 9-0 lead. Josh Clippinger opened the scoring for the Falcons with a jumper two minutes in. Luke Cable then hit a three, before Geoff Boyle made back-to-back layups to give the Falcons an early nine-point edge.
 
Just three minutes later, Boyle added to the Messiah lead when he hit two three-pointers in a two-minute stretch to give the Falcons a 17-5 lead. With six minutes remaining in the half, Jimmy Brackett finished a layup through contact and made his free throw for a three-point play. Brackett's bucket and free throw gave the Falcons a 15-point lead at 20-5.
 
The Falcons and Lions traded baskets for the next five minutes heading into halftime. At the break the Falcons led 28-13.
 
Much like the first-half, the second-half opened with Messiah scoring early on. The Falcons added to their 15-point half-time lead with a layup by Geoff Boyle and a jumper by Matt Hess less than 90 second into the half.
 
After Hess' jumper the Lions came roaring back, going on an 11-4 run over the next 2:43 to close the gap to 36-24. Josh Clippinger put an end to the Lions' run with a thunderous two-handed slam. Clippinger picked off a pass to start the fast break, before hammering it home in the open court.
 
 The Falcons held a healthy, double-digit lead for the majority of the second-half. The Lions cut it to single-digits on a couple of occasions but Messiah countered nearly every time with a bucket of their own.
 
In the final 2:30 the Lions made it interesting. Albright closed the gap to 57-50, the closest the game had been since it was 11-5 just eight minutes into the first-half. Out of a timeout Jonah Meredith made a layup in transition to push the lead back to nine. Albright's Brandon Lindsay countered with a three to bring the deficit to six, but after Micah Brown made a layup and Jimmy Brackett hit two free throws it was back to a 10-point lead with a minute remaining.
 
In the final minute, the Falcons held off the Lions' attempts to close the gap and won by a final score of 66-60.
 
As mentioned Jimmy Brackett led the way for the Falcons off the bench with 13 points and 13 boards. Geoff Boyle (13 points), Luke Cable (12), and Josh Clippinger (10) each tallied in double-digits as well.
 
The win, ends an eight-game losing streak for the Falcons and improves Messiah to 1-4 in the MAC Commonwealth and 4-10 overall.
 
Messiah will next take the court on Wednesday night when they travel to Hood to take on the Blazers. Game time is set for 8:00 p.m.