LANCASTER, Pa.—No. 17 Swarthmore College Men's Basketball gained some ground in the Centennial Conference standings with a road win at Franklin & Marshall College on Saturday afternoon. With the 75-68 win against the F&M Diplomats, and coupled with a loss by conference leader Johns Hopkins University, Swarthmore moved to within a game of first place in the league.

The Garnet (16-3 overall, 9-3 Centennial) avenged a December loss at home to F&M (11-8, 5-7), a game in which the Diplomats won on a tough buzzer beater.

Saturday's contest also had some historical significance as the Garnet were able to get the proverbial monkey off their backs by beating Franklin & Marshall in Lancaster. Swarthmore hadn't beaten F&M on the road since Jan. 13, 2007.

Leading Swarthmore's offensive with 17 points on 5-of-12 shooting was senior guard Cam Wiley. Wiley was perfect from the free-throw line, going 6-for-6. As a team, the Garnet had one of their best free-throw shooting performances of the year, sinking a season-high 25 free throws on 29 attempts (86.2 percent). Twenty-four of those tries came in the second half.

Big man Nate Shafer tallied up a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. He had three blocks and two steals to boot. Shafer went 6-for-7 from the free-throw line.

Freshman George Visconti added 14 points, hitting 7-of-8 free throws. Zac O'Dell contributed 11 points and seven rebounds.

F&M had three players tally 15 points: Justin Kupa, JC McGrath and Matt Redhead.

Swarthmore narrowly edged F&M in the rebounding category 29-28.

The lead changed hands seven times on Saturday. Swarthmore led by as many as five points midway through the first half and then found itself down by five with 6:41 left in the period and still down by one point, 32-31, entering the locker room.

In the second half, Swarthmore finally caught up to F&M at 43-43 with 12:14 to go. After an F&M triple, Swarthmore responded with an 8-0 run.

A Wiley layup with 7:13 to play gave Swarthmore a 57-50 lead, and then Swarthmore wouldn't score another field goal until six minutes later. However, they netted 10 free throws during that span.

F&M pulled within one point at the 1:28 mark, but a layup by Shafer with 1:14 to play would ensure that the Diplomats would get no closer.

Swarthmore closed out the rest of the game going 6-for-6 from the free-throw line and held on for the 75-68 win.

The Garnet are back in action on Wednesday at Washington College who is fresh off of a stunning win over Johns Hopkins.