Grantham, PA - Those Christmas cookies will taste just a little better come Sunday morning.
 
Josh Clippinger scored 18 points and Rob McWilliams hit a go-ahead jumper with 1:40 to play to help Messiah College earn a 69-66 win over Cairn University on Thursday night. McWilliams finished with 17 points and Neil Murren chipped in 12 points to lead the winning effort.
 
The win moved the Falcons to within a game of .500 at 5-6, while Cairn fell to 2-6. This was the first match-up of the teams since 2007.
 
Cairn led the Falcons for all but 35 seconds of the first-half, and they built as much as an eight points lead after the break. A backdoor layup by Eric Jacobs put the Highlanders up six with 13:03 to play, but Messiah responded with a crucial 8-0 run to finally get in front. The first five of those points were free-throws by McWilliams, and then Nate Eberle hit his only three-pointer of the night to make it 43-41 with 10:53 on the clock.
 
That run put the Falcons back in the game, but Cairn soon battled to go back up 49-47 off a paint finish by Julian Collazo. Luke Cable quickly tied it back up with a transition runner on the right side, and Neil Murren the Falcons the lead a moment later with a driving finish on the left baseline.
 
Two free-throws my Murren then put the Falcons up 53-49, but Cairn kept fighting back. With just under minutes to play JD Zamroz hit two free-throws of his own to tie the game up at 59-59, though seconds later McWilliams gave the Falcons the lead for a good with an elbow jumper.
 
Messiah was soon up 63-59 with less than a minute to play, and Clippinger all-but-sealed the game with a spin in the post to give the Falcons a six-point lead.
 
With eight seconds to play Murren hit another pair of free-throws to finish it off.
 
Gerroid Doughty II led the Highlanders with 23 points and eight rebounds, with Collazo (13 points) and Zamroz (10) joining him in double-figures. Collazo also grabbed a game-high nine boards.
 
Cable and Matt Hess each collected three assists for the Falcons as the hosts combined to turn the ball over just six times. That helped them collect a 16-4 edge in points off turnovers, a crucial stat considering they were playing from behind for most of the night. Notably, tonight also marked the fourth-straight game Messiah attempted more free-throws (28) than their opponent (14) after they accomplished that feat just once in the season's first seven games. Messiah made 22 of their attempts on the evening.
 
Messiah will now be off for two weeks and will play again on Wednesday, Jan. 4 when they host Stevenson in a MAC Commonwealth contest.