Box Score
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. – After an extremely close first half, Elizabethtown College pulled away midway through the second period and defeated Lebanon Valley 67-62 in Commonwealth Conference men’s basketball action Saturday afternoon at Thompson Gymnasium.
Elizabethtown (8-12, 3-7 CC), which won its second Commonwealth game in a row after starting 1-7 in conference play, took the lead for good on a Luke Ledyard free throw with 13:03 left that made it 48-47. It was still a one-point game (54-53) with 8:15 remaining after a pair of foul shots from senior guard Jimmy Curran, but the Blue Jays used a 9-2 run to gain some breathing room. Brian Goodwin highlighted the E-town surge with a 3-pointer from the right wing with the shot clock winding down, making it 62-54 with 3:01 left.
The Blue Jays made 5-of-8 free throws the rest of the way while the Dutchmen were unable to trim the deficit under five.
Ledyard paced E-town with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting while Michael Schatzmann added 11 points. Goodwin finished with six assists for the Blue Jays.
Curran led the Dutchmen (12-9, 4-6 CC) with 22 points, his ninth 20-point game of the season, while handing out five assists. He scored 15 in the first half, when he shot 5-for-7 from the floor. Senior guard Hunter Bretschneider contributed 11 points while sophomore guard Kyle Enoch grabbed a career-high nine rebounds.
The first half was a nip-and-tuck affair that featured four ties and 10 lead changes. Three different Dutchmen connected on 3-pointers in the early going, and a Dan Hodge trey with 12:00 on the clock capped a 9-2 LVC run, giving Lebanon Valley its biggest lead (17-10) of the night. But that’s when E-town rallied with a 9-0 run. A fastbreak dunk from Mike Church tied it a 17-all before Billy Orr put the Jays up 19-17 with a lay-up off an inbounds pass.
A 6-0 Dutchman spurt gave the visitors a five-point lead (32-27) late in the opening period. Bretschneider got it started with a 3-pointer and a fastbreak lay-up over a 13-second span before sophomore forward Eric Humphrey made 1-of-2 free throws with 2:25 on the clock. Curran dropped in a fadeaway jumper from the left baseline with 24 seconds left to give the Dutchmen a 37-32 lead, but Chris Fairbanks drained a long 3-pointer from the right wing to make it a 37-35 game at the half.
Lebanon Valley shot 57.9% in the opening period, making 5-of-8 shots from beyond the arc.
The back-and-forth action continued in the second stanza, when there was one tie and three lead changes over the opening two minutes of the period. Bretschneider the game for the last time with 13:42 remaining, when he canned a 3-pointer from the right elbow on a kick-out from Curran, making it 47-47. But Ledyard put the Jays on top to stay 39 seconds later.
The Dutchmen continue their season on Wednesday, when they host Moravian College at 8 p.m. in another Commonwealth Conference match-up.
[Photo - Senior guard Jimmy Curran, who had 22 points and five assists against Elizabethtown on Saturday]
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