Box Score
Mobile, AL-Despite struggling on offense and trailing for the majority of the game, the Belhaven men's basketball team managed to find just enough offense to escape with 51-50 victory at Spring Hill College Thursday night. The Blazers are now 9-3 overall and opened Gulf Coast Athletic Conference play at 1-0. The Badgers fall to 6-4 overall and are 0-1 in the GCAC with the loss.

 

The Blazers would enjoy their only two leads of the game in the first and final minutes of the contest. Belhaven opened up the scoring on a layup by Korey Whiting 23 seconds into the game. Ironically, Whiting would also be the one to score the winning basket with 26 seconds left on the clock. Jeremy Rice put Spring Hill on top for the first time with a three pointer at the 18:32 mark of the first half. From then on, the Badgers controlled the lead for the rest of the half.

 

The triple by Rice was the beginning of a 17-7 run by the Badgers to begin the game and gave Spring Hill their first double digit lead of the night. The Blazers pulled to within four points at 21-17 on a jumper by Krayleon Winston with 3:05 to go in the opening frame. Thomas Tunberg then converted on a field goal in the lane to bring the Blazers within two at 21-19 with 2:17 to go on the first half clock. Spring Hill then reeled off six straight points to close out the first half with a 27-19 advantage.

 

Belhaven began to chip away at the lead during the first six minutes of the second half and knotted the score at 31 all on a free throw by Korey Whiting. Following the free throw by Whiting, the Badgers ripped off an 11-0 run to extend the Belhaven deficit to 42-31 with just over 10 minutes to go in the contest. The Blazers closed to within two points of the lead at 44-42 on a bucket by Korey Whiting with 5:44 left. Spring Hill then pushed their lead back to six at 48-42 with a little over four minutes left in the game.

 

Belhaven made their final push using a 7-2 run to cut the gap to one at 50-49 on an Iman Walcott free throw with 28 seconds left. Walcott had one more attempt at the line but failed to convert to tie the score. Fortunately, Whiting outfought the Badger defense for the offensive rebound and with 26 seconds remaining, he quickly converted the rebound into two points to give the Blazers the victory, 51-50. Whiting also came up with a key steal to prevent a last second scoring attempt by the Badgers.

 

Whiting finished the night with 14 points and a game high of 9 rebounds. Walcott led the Blazer offense with 15 points and also tallied 7 rebounds. Belhaven shot just 33 percent from the field but made up for some of the missed shots by outrebounding Spring Hill 43-32. Jeremy Price and Owen McNally both had 12 points to pace the Badgers while Marcus Coleman hit double digits in points with 10. Spring Hill knocked down 40 percent of their field goals and hit 56 percent of their free throw attempts.