Box Score
Garden City, N.Y. – The Adelphi men's basketball team hosted the Yellow Jackets of American International College in a Northeast-10 contest earlier this evening. The Panthers rallied to tie the game with just three seconds left in regulation to force overtime and outlasted their opponents in dramatic fashion by a score of 59-52. With the win, the Panthers improve to 12-11 and 9-8 in the NE-10 while the Yellow Jackets fall to 7-14 and 4-13 in the conference.
For the Panthers,
John Calarco led the team with 19 points by shooting 50 percent from the field and going 5-6 from the charity stripe. He was also responsible for grabbing an offensive rebound and making a difficult layup at the end of regulation to tie the game and send it into overtime.
Anthony Libroia also added a double-digit scoring effort with 12 points of his own.
Bradley Simpson, despite only scoring six points, pulled down 12 rebounds while
Sean Crawford added seven points and six rebounds in the win.
For the Yellow Jackets, Ricky Hudson led all scorers with 26 points. Spencer Braithwaite and Janek Schmidkunz chipped in with a combined 15 points while Brennan Cooper pulled down 11 rebounds in the loss.
In a low scoring first half, Adelphi took the early 6-3 lead through the first 4:04 courtesy of buckets by
Cliff Brown, Eddie Sullivan and a pair of free throws from Simpson.
The Yellow Jackets put together a 6-0 spanning four minutes to go up by six which would prove to be their largest lead of the game.
However, over the final eight minutes, the Panthers outscored the visitors 11-4 as they connected on six of their final 10 attempts from the floor, closing out the half strong and sending the game into halftime with the score reading 24-20 in their favor.
Brown converted on a three point play just 24 seconds into the second half while Libroia drained a three from the corner a minute later to open the half and give the Panthers their largest lead of the game, 30-20.
Another triple from the left corner by Libroia at 11:26, the first field goal for either side since Hudson drained a three at 18:30 for the Yellow Jackets, pushed Adelphi's lead back up to 10 after the visitors cut the deficit to seven.
The Panther's 10 point cushion dwindled over the next 6:49 as AIC responded with a 17-6 run, turning the tables on the scoreboard in their favor as Adelphi found themselves down by one at 42-41 with less than five minutes remaining.
The lead was brief, however, as the Brown and Gold came out of a timeout called by Head Coach Dom Savino and sank two jumpers; one by
Nayquann Mitchell and the other by Simpson to restore Adelphi's advantage to 45-42.
With 33 seconds remaining, Adelphi was down by two after Hudson made one of his two tries from the charity stripe. After driving down court, Mitchell missed his chance at a jumper, but Calarco grabbed the rebound and put the layup in from underneath the basket to tie the score at 47-47 with just three seconds left on the clock. The game headed to overtime when Campbell's last second three-point attempt didn't find the rim.
Just 32 seconds into overtime, Braithwaite drained a three to put the visitors in front, but Calarco answered with a three of his own to knot the score at 50. Hudson proceeded to hit a two-point jumper but Libroia answered with a pair from the charity stripe to even things up at 52. Libroia was fouled again just one possession later, and drained another pair to put the Panthers on top, 54-52.
Both Hudson and Braithwaite missed three point shots on the next possession while Simpson was fouled on the defensive rebound and went to the line. He connected on both free throws, and Calarco added one more from the charity stripe seconds later to push the lead to 57-52 with 34 seconds remaining. At this point, the Yellow Jackets were forced to foul, and Calarco hit a pair to ice the win.
The Panthers return to action on Wednesday, January 13
th when they host the Golden Knights of Saint Rose at the Center for Recreation and Sports. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 pm.
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