Box Score

Garden City, N.Y. – Despite trailing 24-9 in the opening half, the Adelphi University men's basketball team rallied for a 63-51 win on Saturday, February 23 in their home regular season finale at the Center for Recreation and Sports. With the win, the Panthers improve to 14-13 overall and 11-10 in the NE-10 while the Dolphins fall to 12-13 overall and 9-12 in the conference.
 
The Panthers were led by a 22-point performance from John Calarco, who also went 5-6 from three point land. Chris Ranglin was the only other Panther in double figures with 14 points and both pulled down six boards. For the Dolphins, Nate Champion scored 17 points and Jim Janson added 11.
 
Simpson got the Panthers on the board first, but the visitors ripped off seven straight points behind four from Champion and a three from Ryan Romich to lead 7-2. A layup from RJ Samuels cut the lead to three, 7-4, but consecutive threes from Romich put the Dolphins ahead, 10-4; Champion added another from behind the arc to push the Dolphins' lead to 13-4 with 15:52 to go.
 
Simpson converted on a three-point play to cut the Dolphins' lead to 13-7, but the Dolphins went on an 11-2 scoring tear from there; a three from Gamal Mohamed gave the Dolphins their biggest lead of the game, 24-9 with 6:39 remaining.
 
 From there, the Adelphi offense exploded, after having previously been ice cold for the majority of the half. The Panthers put together a 9-0 scoring run, with contributions from Nayquann Mitchell, Sean Crawford and Calarco to trail 24-18.
 
To end the half, the Panthers held a 6-2 scoring advantage. All six points came courtesy of Ranglin, his total points in the half, and in the closing minute of action. He converted on a three-point play to pull Adelphi within five, 26-21 and drained a three from well-behind the arc with 17 seconds left to send his team to halftime down two, 26-24.
 
A three from Calarco gave Adelphi their first lead since 2-0, a 27-26 advantage with 19:04 remaining. However, Jim Janson responded with five unanswered points to put the Dolphins back in front, 32-27 with 15:14 to go.
 
Libroia answered with a long three to cut the deficit to two, 32-30 but Romich once again made it a two-possession affair at 34-30. From there, the Panthers scored five straight points behind a three from Calarco and a layup from Ranglin to reclaim the lead, 35-34 with 12:25 remaining.
 
Another layup from Ranglin and a thunder dunk from Mitchell put the Panthers up two possessions, 39-35 with 11:18 to go; back-to-back threes from Crawford and Calarco put the Panthers up eight, 45-37 with under ten minutes to go.
 
The game quickly became a three-point shootout as Champion answered with a trey for the Dolphins and Calarco and Qwadere Lovell exchanged buckets from behind the arc; however, the Brown and Gold opened up a nine point lead on the back of yet another trey from Calarco with 8:02 remaining.
 
Another three from Lovell cut the Adelphi lead to five, 52-47 but Mitchell's second dunk of the game restored a 54-47 Adelphi advantage with 4:54 to go. A layup from Champion at with less than four minutes to go pulled the Dolphins to within six, 54-49, but they would not get any closer for the remainder of the game.
 
Ranglin put in a layup at 2:18 and Calarco converted on a three-point play just 25 seconds later pushed Adelphi's lead to 10, 59-49; Calarco and Ranglin combined for four more points over the final minute to put Adelphi up, 63-49 and gave them a lead they would not relinquish.
 
The Panthers return to action in their regular season finale on Wednesday, February 26^th when they travel to Southern Connecticut State for a 7:30 tipoff in New Haven, Connecticut.