SALEM, Va. --- Eastern Mennonite's basketball men rallied in the second half to grab a 65-62 win in the ODAC Tournament quarterfinals Thursday afternoon in Salem.
EMU and the Hornets have played three times this year and each time the lead trailing at the half won the game. They split their meetings in the regular season.
The Runnin Royals improve to 17-9 and advance to the semifinals where they will play top-seeded Randolph-Macon Saturday afternoon at 1:00pm at the Salem Civic Center. Also the nation's No. 1 team, the Yellow Jackets beat Randolph College in the quarterfinals 72-63 to extend their winning streak to 21 games.
EMU and R-MC only played once during the regular season, with the Yellow Jackets escaping 76-73 on their home court.
In Thursday's quarterfinal with Lynchburg, the teams traded leads early before the Hornets scored eight in row to go up 15-9.
The men trailed by as many as 10 in the first half, with the deficit at 23-13 after LC got a three pointer from Lyndon White at the 8:18 mark. Although they were never able to strike a big run, the Royals chiseled it down to five points by halftime, 34-29.
Despite a 2-for-17 shooting performance from three point range in the first half, Eastern Mennonite quickly proved they were a different team in the second half. David Falk scored first with a nice assist from James Williams, and then Woody Furbush bounced in a three from the wing to lock up the score at 34-34.
For the next 13 minutes the two teams went back and forth, trading leads and ties. A key point came with 6:06 left, when Williams lost his footing during a scramble for a rebound and ended up fouling an LC player, picking up his fourth foul. EMU's point guard headed to the bench and the Hornets switched to a 2-3 zone on defense. As the Royals struggled on offense, the Hornets built up a 58-54 lead with 4:43 left.
Williams then returned to the floor and turned the tide and quickly canned a huge triple with 3:43 to play. Lynchburg got a bucket to keep the edge at three, but the men kept coming.
Williams hit a pair of free throws to cut it back to one at 60-59. Then the defense took over. The Royals made back-to-back defensive stands and got a jumper from Ryan Yates followed by a huge three-point play from Marcel Crump to bump the lead to 64-60 with 1:52 to go. The play also drew the fifth foul on LC's All-ODAC Second Team big man, Alex Graves.
Each team missed on their next possession, and the Hornets got a layup to sneak back within two with 37 seconds to play. LC then fouled Falk away from the ball and EMU's senior center made one-of-two free throws for the key three-point lead.
Forced into looking for the longball, the Hornets took a long attempt from outside and missed, but Yates missed two free throws with 12.9 left to leave the door open. LC called a timeout with 3.9 to go, but EMU's defense was the difference again, forcing the Hornets off their primary option and into a contested three point attempt, which skipped off and out of bounds as time expired.
The Royals were outshot from the floor, 41% to 36%, but more than made it up from the free throw line. Led by Crump's attacking in the second half, Eastern Mennonite was 15-26 from the stripe while LC was only 9-13.
Yates hit three triples and finished with a game 19 points. Falk shot 8-12 from the floor and charted 17 points and 17 rebounds. Crump gave a perfect 7-for-7 performance from the free throw line and scored 13 points with seven rebounds.
Williams scored all five of his points in that key late stretch and had a game high five assists. Furbush had six points and six boards.
Zack Burnett led Lynchburg with 15 points and nine rebounds. Graves finished with 12 points while Austen Arnold had 10 points and eight boards.
--- This release is coutesy of Eastern Mennonite's sports information department. ---