Box Score

ANNVILLE, Pa. – Senior guard Brandon Smith scored a game-high 22 points and pulled down nine rebounds to lead Franklin & Marshall College to a 69-55 win over Lebanon Valley in non-conference men’s basketball action Thursday evening in the LVC Gymnasium.

The Diplomats (5-1), who won for the fourth straight game, never trailed after Smith nailed a three-pointer five seconds into the game. F&M limited the Flying Dutchmen to 35.4% shooting and out-rebounded LVC 41-30.

Lebanon Valley (2-4), which lost for the third game in a row, received a team-high 12 points from junior guard Hunter Bretschneider, who shot 4-for-8 from three-point range. Junior guard Jimmy Curran and freshman guard Kyle Enoch added 11 points apiece for the Valley, while Curran and senior forward Dan Hogan each grabbed seven rebounds.

Franklin & Marshall bolted out to an 18-5 start and led by as much as 14 on three occasions in the opening half. But after trailing 29-15 with 6:10 to go in the stanza, the Dutchmen climbed back into it with a 10-0 run, fueled by a pair of Bretschneider threes and capped by two Enoch free throws, that made it a four-point game with 2:45 left. The Diplomats took a 31-25 lead into the locker room.

Lebanon Valley continued its comeback in the second half, and back-to-back treys from Bretschneider and Enoch tied it up 31-31 less than two minutes into the period. The Dutchmen tied it two more times, first on a Dave Kasyan lay-up and then on another Enoch three, but the Dips took the lead for good on lay-up from sophomore forward Derek Hines with 16:21 left, making it 38-36.

F&M enjoyed a nine-point lead (57-48) with 6:00 remaining before Kasyan scored four points in a row, sinking a free throw before converting a conventional three-point play, to pull LVC to within five (57-52) with 4:43 left. But that would turn out to the team’s final field goal of the night, and the Diplomats scored the next 10 points to go ahead 67-52 with 1:07 left. The Dutchmen missed a pair of shots and turned the ball over four times during the crucial stretch.

Junior forward Bryan Teschke added 15 points for Franklin & Marshall while sophomore guard Adam Leonard had 13 points. Junior guard Logan Outerbridge handed out a game-high six assists for the Dips.

Lebanon Valley returns to action on Saturday, when it hosts Messiah College in a Commonwealth Conference match-up at 1 p.m.

[Photo - Junior guard Jimmy Curran, who had 11 points and seven rebounds against Franklin & Marshall]

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