Men’s Basketball drops overtime heartbreaker to Lenoir-Rhyne

SALISBURY, N.C. – Six double-figure scorers led the Catawba College men's basketball team in a shootout with Lenoir-Rhyne, but the Bears used overtime buckets to snatch a 112-108 win on Wednesday night at Goodman Arena.

TEAM STATS

- Catawba (4-4, 2-3 SAC) broke .500 from the field for the first time this season at 57.1 percent, but Lenoir-Rhyne (7-2, 5-1 SAC) drilled shots early and often with a 64.4 field goal percentage

- LR pressed its luck 14 times from distance, making six treys for a 42.9 percent clip against the 40.9 percent (9-of-22) mark by Catawba

- 30 of the Bears' points came from free throws on a 63.8 percent shooting night, benefitting from 47 attempts as the hosts hit 70.4 percent (19-of-27) of its foul shots

- The blue and white barely won the turnover battle at 19-18, gathering 15 steals while LR logged seven

- The Bears finished with a 32-31 lead in rebounds despite a 15-12 margin favoring Catawba in offensive boards

- Catawba's 108 points is its highest scoring value in a loss since the Jan. 30, 2008 setback to Carson-Newman (129-123 in OT); LR's 112 is the Bears' most against Catawba in series history

INDIVIDUAL STATS

- Montraivis White swished 21 points, tying his career high of five three-pointers, and led the Catawba Indians with seven assists

- Ibra Athie extended the team's double-double streak to four with his second of the campaign, also netting 21 points while grabbing 10 rebounds

- Nick Walker was extremely efficient, going 6-for-8 from the floor and 7-for-8 at the charity stripe to total 19 points

- Kris Robinson recorded 12 points followed by Caleb Jones and Solomon Tucker with 10 apiece to round out the double-digit scoring totals

- In his fourth straight game with a steal, Chase Daniel came away with a team-high four swipes while Zion McDuffie nabbed six boards in 13 minutes; both players tallied five points

HOW IT HAPPENED

First Half

- Catawba won the tip and immediately got to work as Robinson drilled a three on the opening possession, keying a 10-5 start for the home team

- LR tied it up at 14-14, but the deficit eventually reached seven on a rim-rocking alley-oop from White to Walker

- Ziare Wells recorded five points in 19 seconds including the conversion of an and-one to reduce the gap to 22-20

- Walker continued to roll with multiple buckets and successful charity-stripe trips although the Bears saw Hantz Louis-Jeune heat up and Wells remain lethal

- After Catawba reached a 10-point cushion, five late points from Wells and a Julian Dozier jumper at the buzzer trimmed the margin to 51-44 at halftime

Second Half

- Dozier dropped in another basket to cap a 12-4 run coming out of the break, giving LR its first lead of the contest at 56-55

- Athie went 2-for-2 at the free-throw line following the under-16 media timeout, but the Bears tallied the next nine points

- A strong resistance effort featuring two swishes from Tucker, a Daniel three-point play, and three-balls by Robinson and White helped the Catawba Indians tighten the margin to one

- White swished two pull-up treys inside the six-minute mark, keeping the score at a one-possession difference

- Ahead 96-95 with eight seconds to go, LR committed a costly shooting foul to send Walker to the line; the Bears called its final two timeouts as the Hattiesburg, Miss. product went 1-for-2, sending the contest into an extra period

Overtime

- Riding the momentum, Catawba received two Athie makes to start OT with two-point leads that Dozier ultimately erased with scores of his own

- White and Jones tickled the twine, stretching the Catawba Indian advantage to four – the largest divide in nearly 12 minutes

- With 1:28 left, the hosts were whistled for a shooting foul and a dead ball contact technical foul; Dozier made three of his four opportunities as LR retained possession

- Back-to-back driving layups by Wells upped the junior's scoring total to 32 and lifted the Bears to a 109-106 edge

- Needing a stop, Catawba got too aggressive and fouled Junior Hodnett on a tip-in bucket, setting up a three-point play that helped finalize a South Atlantic Conference win for the visitors

UP NEXT

The blue and white are back in action at Goodman Arena on Saturday, Dec. 7 against Emory & Henry for a 7 p.m. tipoff.