DOYLESTOWN (Pa.)--- After trailing by 20 at halftime, the Delaware Valley men's basketball team stormed back in the second half to trail by as little as two, but the Aggies' comeback fell short as Lycoming held on for a 73-68 in MAC Freedom play.
It was all Lycoming (6-4, 2-1) from the onset, as the Warriors exploded for a 13-0 lead four and a half minutes in. For the remainder of the first half, the Aggies (5-5, 2-2) were unable to trim the deficit to single digits after trailing by ten for a brief moment midway through. The Warriors shot 18-of-35 for 51% in the first half while holding Delaware Valley to 8-of-30 for 26.7% shooting. Lycoming was scorching from beyond the arc over the first 20 minutes, as they hit eight of 16 attempts.
Lycoming held a steady lead at 51-31 three and a half minutes into the second half before the Aggies' comeback began. Rasheem Dearry started a 14-0 run with a layup. Zoelin Pair converted an and-one and Tyriq Toney-Bailey then scored eight of the next nine points in the game to trim the deficit to 51-45 with 12:20 left. The Warriors quickly responded with a 6-0 burst to grow their cushion back to 12 with 10:25 left.
With 7:38 remaining and Lycoming holding a 63-52 lead, Goddy Marc connected from long range and Toney-Bailey drained a three pointer on the next possession to bring DelVal to within five at 63-58 with 6:26 to play, the smallest margin of the game to that point. The Warriors then lead by seven before Pair converted on another old-fashioned three point play and Rasheem Dearry had a putback on the offensive end to bring the score to 67-65 with 3:23 remaining, the first time since the score was 2-0 that the Aggies trailed by just one possession.
The Aggies were able to force a Lycoming miss the next trip down the floor, but Deaundre Manuel followed it up with a dunk to extend the lead back to four. After DelVal turned it over on the inbounds, Dyson Harward, who finished with 16 points and 14 rebounds, hit one of his four three pointers to push the cushion back to seven as the Warriors held on for the 73-68 win.
Rasheem Dearry scored a career-high 24 points while Tyriq Toney-Bailey was the other Aggie in double figures with 11. Zoelin Pair grabbed 12 boards for the fourth time this season while Justin Savage pulled down a career-best ten rebounds.
The Aggies will return to action Tuesday, December 20th for a 3 p.m. home contest against Moravian.
