Men's Basketball

Men's Basketball Takes Amherst, Ranked #6, Down to Wire but Fall in NESCAC/Little Three Battle, 66-64

Jason Mendell '12 (#34, photo) scored a team-high 18 points and helped the Cardinals recover from a 10-point halftime deficit, but when the final horn sounded, homestanding Amherst, ranked #6 nationally, escaped with a 66-64 NESCAC/Little Three triumph Fri., Jan. 6.  Wesleyan moves on to play at Trinity Sat., Jan. 7 to close out the opening NESCAC weekend.  The game will feature a webcast and LiveStats, which can both be seen by clicking < here >.

At Amherst, Wesleyan fought back from a 28-18 margin at intermission to forge a 35-35 tie with a 17-7 start to the second half.  A three pointer by Julian Harris '14 at the 14:07 mark knotted the count.  From that point on, neither team led by more than five points and Wesleyan took its first lead of the second half, 53-52, when Matt Callori '13 dropped a pair of free throws with 4:16 remaining.  The game was tied three times after that, the last coming after a basket by Shasha Brown '13 (11 points) with 1:49 left, 59-59.  Amherst then scored the next five points for a 64-59 edge with :16 to go and a three-pointer at the buzzer by Bryan Galvin '15 made it a two-point gap, 66-64.

Wesleyan had led by five, 9-4, its largest lead of the game, in the opening five minutes before a 19-4 Lord Jeff run put the host up by a 23-13 margin.  The game's widest difference was 12, 28-16, just before halftime.  But Mendell netted eight of the Cardinals' opening 17 points of the second stanza with a pair of treys and a bucket before Harris hit the tying three-pointer.  Harris ended the game with nine points while Derick Beresford '13 chipped in wth 10.  Glen Thomas '14 led in the rebounding department for Wesleyan with seven.