Box Score
ANNVILLE, Pa. - Lebanon Valley College twice led by 10 points in the second half against Alvernia, but watched that double-digit advantage slip away as the Crusaders stormed back for a one-point win, 61-60. Seth Cornell scored Alvernia's final eight points - including the game-winning layup with 6.1 seconds remaining to push the Crusaders to their 10th win of the season.
Joe Meehan almost single-handedly willed LVC to the win, scoring 19 of his 24 points in the second half. He came out of halftime on fire, tallying 11 of the Flying Dutchmen's first 13 points after the break, capped off by a steal and an end-to-end rush for a layup to give LVC a 34-24 lead with 15:51 to play.
The Crusaders put together a 10-0 run later in the half to turn a 39-31 LVC lead into a 41-39 Alvernia advantage with 10 minutes to play. The game was back-and-forth from there with three ties and two lead changes.
The largest lead by any team over the final 10:28 came with 1:35 to play when Meehan drained the second a free throw to give LVC a 58-53 lead. On its next possession, Alvernia made it a one-score game after Cornell sank his fourth three-pointer of the game. Sean MacIntosh answered for LVC with a turnaround jumper, re-upping the lead to 60-56 with 00:47 left. Cornell found his way to the hoop and lay in a bucket with 29 seconds left to again climb within two.
The Crusaders forced a turnover by LVC with 21 seconds remaining and Cornell was fouled outside the three-point line with 12 seconds to play. Cornell wasn't in the act of shooting, however, and would only have two free throws. He sank the first, but missed the second and LVC still had the lead. Unfortunately for the Dutchmen, the rebound of the missed free throw went out of bounds off a LVC player and Alvernia would have another shot. After a pair of LVC timeouts, Cornell grabbed the inbound pass and completed his individual eight-point rally with another driving layup to give Alvernia only its fifth lead of the game - but its most important.
LVC still had 6.1 seconds to work with, but Meehan had trouble getting up the court off the inbounds and LVC had to use its final timeout with 0.9 seconds remaining. One final pass was knocked away by a diving Nick Rivera, and Alvernia had its second conference win of the season.
Meehan finished with a game-high 24 points for LVC. McIntosh added 14. Dan Dunkelberger led all rebounders with 11 boards to go with three assists and three steals. Cornell was the high man for the Crusaders, scoring 23 points. Tad Gillis added 14 and Brian Nerney finished with 10.
The second half was a far different half of basketball than the first. Each team had trouble scoring in the first 20 minutes, with LVC shooting just 23% and Alvernia not doing much better at 31% for the opening period. In the second, each team turned it on. LVC doubled up its production, hitting 16-of-35 attempts (46%) while Alvernia was 14-of-26 (54%) and 4-of-8 from three-point range.
LVC falls to an even 6-6 with a 2-1 record in the Commonwealth Conference. Alvernia improves to 2-1 in the conference and 10-3 overall.
The Flying Dutchmen are back on the court Jan. 13 at Elizabethtown at 8 p.m.
