Photo By Logan Moyer, Sports Editor
By Matt Guear
The men’s basketball team (15-9 Overall, 12-5 Landmark) fell 51-50 to the Juniata Eagles (14-10, 10-7) on Wednesday night at O.W. Houts Gymnasium in a down-to-the-wire contest.
With under 30 seconds left and Susquehanna up by one point, the River Hawks turned the ball over and fouled Juniata center Chase Husted, who sunk both shots at the charity stripe to put the Eagles up by one with 13 seconds left.
Junior guard Marcus Mitchell led the River Hawks in scoring with 19 points but failed to make the game-winning layup with time expiring in the second half as the Eagles escaped with a nail-biting victory.
Husted was a problem for the River Hawks all game. He finished as the Eagles’ leading scorer with 17 points and eight rebounds.
“Husted is a handful,” said head coach Frank Marcinek .“He’s the guy they can go to when the game gets close.”
Susquehanna started the game relatively flat, going down 10-5 at the 14:20 mark. Then, Marcinek made two adjustments to get Susquehanna back into the game.
First, he elected to move to a zone defense after the man coverage they were running was proving to be inefficient.
“We tried to mix in some zone to try and not let [Husted] get comfortable,” Marcinek said.
Marcinek also elected to play both sophomore forwards Brandon Lavitt and Billy Anderson at the same time.
Anderson had nine total points, eight of which came in the first half. Lavitt’s struggles from Susquehanna’s last game against Scranton continued. He had only two points and shot 1-6 from the field.
This move to play height over perimeter mobility seemingly worked well at first, but the River Hawks’ failure to convert on layups ultimately cost them.
“In the first half, we drove too deep and turned it over. In the second half, we got to the rim but just didn’t finish,” said Marcinek.
However, the River Hawks’ ultimate downfall was their inability to make their three-point shots. Aside from Mitchell, who made three on five attempts, they shot a combined 5-21 from beyond the arc.
Despite their shooting woes, Susquehanna found themselves knotted up at 23 headed into half time.
Their offensive play picked up in a big way at about the halfway point in the second half. The River Hawks were moving the ball effectively and grabbed a commanding 44-34 lead. SU’s lead slipped away just as Husted began to take control in the post for Juniata.
“The game was played more on their terms than it was on our terms,” said Marcinek. “We’ve been here before. We have to grow up and get over some of this.”
The River Hawks’ last game of the season is against Drew in Madison, New Jersey on Saturday. They must win to secure a first-round bye in the Landmark Conference playoffs.
