The Shoremen make it to the Centennial Conference playoffs for two years straight after nearly two decades
By Chrissy Segrest
Elm Staff Writer
The Washington College men’s basketball team took on #4 Muhlenberg College at the Mules’ gym for the first round of Centennial Conference playoffs on Tuesday, Feb. 25. For the five seniors on the Shoremen’s roster, this was their last game in a WC uniform, as they fell to the Mules 84-72.
Muhlenberg took a 12-2 lead minutes into the contest, and they never trailed for the rest of the game. With 13 minutes left in the first half, senior Alec Lewis started a run for WC by gathering a triple from the right side and then senior Austin Allen had a layup to add to the total. To finish off the run, a jumper by senior Dallas Marshall cut the lead down to four, 13-9.
With 11:27 to go, the Mules found themselves adding 11 points to their lead, and by the 5:57 mark MC would have its largest lead of the night, 35-17.
The Shoremen made a small comeback before halftime, bringing the score to 45-29, as Marshall had a triple and freshman Patrick Devitt had a bomb from the top of the circle.
WC went on to score the first five points of the second half. Sophomore Dilyn Becker hit a jumper and junior Daniel Brown went for a three. At this point the score is 45-34, the closest the score would be all night.
With 14:05 left, the Mules took a small 7-2 run, but Becker stole a rebound and made a layup, after Marshall made a jump hook to bring the score to 52-40.
With 11:55, Allen hit two free throws, but the hosts would go on to score 10 points.
WC managed to score off 12 points before the end of the game, but it just wasn’t enough to overcome the deficient.
Lewis had a team high of 19 points, and went a perfect seven for seven from the line. Brown had 10 points and nine boards, while Marshall had 12 points and Becker had nine points, two blocks, and a pair of steals.
This is only the second time in the Shoremen’s history that they have appeared in back-to-back conference playoffs. The last time this happened was from 1997 to 2000, under head coach Tom Finnegan, when they went four years in a row.
Muhlenberg went go on to lose to Swarthmore College in the next round of Centennial Conference playoffs. John Hopkins took on Haverford College and JHU came out victorious. In the championship game, JHU took on Swarthmore, and the Blue Jays won it all in the last three seconds of the contest, beating the only remaining undefeated team in all of NCAA, regardless of division.