SWARTHMORE, Pa.—Thursday night's Tri-Co game between the No. 17 Swarthmore College Garnet and the Haverford College Fords lived up to the ideals of a rivalry game. The fiercely contested game had the lead change hands 10 times and had the score tied on six different occasions.
Two clutch layups by junior forward
Nate Shafer and a block by
Cam Wiley and
Zac O'Dell in the final two minutes and change helped secure a 64-62 win for Swarthmore at home.
The Garnet never led by more than seven points in the back-and-forth battle and found themselves trailing by two points with 3:08 to go. Shafer, who led Swarthmore with 12 points, finished an assist from Wiley with 2:14 to play to make the game 62-62. With the game still tied, the Fords attempted to the lead with 1:10 to go, but Wiley denied them with a blocked shot in the paint. Wiley missed the layup on the other end, but Shafer was right there and tipped it in to give the Garnet the 64-62 lead with 58 seconds left.
The Fords looked to tie on their next possession, but the team's leading scorer this season, Joe Scibelli, had his jump shot swatted away by O'Dell. The Garnet then ran down as much clock as they could, but couldn't get the two possession lead on an attempt by Wiley with 12 seconds left. Haverford came away with the board with eight seconds remaining and drew up a final play.
Swarthmore had been stung earlier in the season twice in a similar situation where the opposing team got to take the final shot and hit the game-winner at the buzzer. This time, Swarthmore's defense locked down completely and kept the Fords from getting off anything close to a good shot at the buzzer.
Swarthmore improved to 15-3 overall and 8-3 in Centennial Conference action. Haverford, losers of two games in a row by a pair of points, dipped to 7-11 overall and 3-8 in conference.
Shafer finished the night with eight rebounds, a block and a steal to go along with his team-high 12 points. Wiley pitched in 11 points on 5-fo-12 shooting and had four assists, two rebounds and a block. O'Dell nearly had the double-double as he chalked up 11 points, nine rebounds and had a season-high five blocks.
Swarthmore never really got into a rhythm from deep and shot just 5-of-20 from 3-point range. The Garnet shot 41.8 percent overall.
The Garnet continue league play on the road Saturday at 3 p.m. at Franklin & Marshall College.
