Box Score
Montgomery, AL-The Belhaven men's basketball suffered a last second 70-69 loss at Faulkner University in a Southern States Athletic Conference West Division contest Saturday afternoon. The Blazers rallied back to tie the game in the final moments after trailing by as many as 19 points only to watch the Eagles pull out the win on a late free throw. The Blazers now find themselves in a tie for fourth place in the division with Auburn-Montgomery with one game to play in the regular season.

Belhaven (15-14, 5-6 SSAC) was led by Nathaniel Roche' who scored a team high 20 points while grabbing seven rebounds. Roche' is averaging 16 points and 9.6 rebounds per game this season. Rob Wallace followed Roche' with 18 points and Forrest Yarbrough tallied double digits for the second consecutive game scoring 10 points on 4 of 6 shooting from the field. Yarbrough added two more triples and now has 32 on the season.

The Blazers made good on 49.1 percent of their field goals (27-55) and dialed up 35.3 percent of the attempts from downtown (6-17). Belhaven converted 69.2 percent of their shots at the charity stripe knocking down 9 of 13 free throws. The Blazers hurt themselves with turnovers coughing up the ball 23 times on the night. Belhaven outrebounded Faulkner 33-26 and forced 16 Eagle turnovers.

Faulkner (9-18, 4-6 SSAC) was paced by Chris Palmore with 27 points and was the only Eagle to land in double figures. Camille Ngon a Ngon had nine points and five rebounds while Decorey Jones and Jake Mitchell picked up eight points each. Michael Reynolds ended the game as Faulkner's top rebounder with six boards.

The Eagles connected on 43.9 percent of their field goals (25-57), hit 37.5 percent of their three pointers (6-16), and 51.9 percent of their free throws (14-27).

Belhaven found themselves in a deep hole early in the game as Faulkner raced out to a 23-4 lead with 12:25 left to go in the first half. The Blazers were in catch up mode the rest of the half and managed to trim the deficit to 10 points at the break as they trailed 37-27 going into the locker room. Through the first 7:30 minutes of the second half the Eagles managed to rebuild an 18 point lead at 55-37 with just over 12:30 remaining in the contest.

Belhaven then cut the deficit to single digits 59-50 thanks to a 13-4 run that was ignited by a Bobby Grier field goal and capped on a Roche' bucket with 7:40 left on the second half clock. Two minutes later, Ngon a Ngon hit a bucket to put Faulkner back up by 12 points 65-53. The Eagles did not score another point for the next five plus minutes opening the door for Belhaven to get back in the game. The Blazes reeled off 13 straight points and took a 66-65 lead following a free throw by Roche' with 1:07 to go.

Palmore ended the Faulkner scoring drought with a basket three seconds later moving the Eagles in front once again 67-66. Palmore then connected on two free throws which made it a 69-66 game with 18 seconds remaining. Wallace then evened things up again at 69-69 with a triple, but then Wallace fouled De Hereford with five seconds to go sending him to the line with a chance to win the game. Hereford, who had not scored in the game at that point, knocked down one of two free throws to give Faulkner the 70-69 win.

Belhaven will be back in action on Thursday when they wrap up the regular season at home on senior night against Spring Hill College starting at 7:30 PM. Fans can follow all the action through live stats by clicking here.