St. Petersburg, Fla. – Lynn University's men's basketball team fell in overtime to Eckerd College, 79-73, Wednesday night in the SSC Quarterfinals. The Fighting Knights finish the season at 7-20 overall while the Tritons improve to 21-7.
Chris Hall matched his season-high with a game-high 24 points and made 9-of-11 from the free throw line. The native of Lauderhill, Fla., finishes his illustrious career in the Blue & White with a program-record 1,945 points.
Fellow senior Terrell Williams also had a solid performance in his final collegiate game, finishing with 14 points, on a career-high 10-of-12 from the free throw line, and nine rebounds.
The Fighting Knights jumped ahead early 8-3 on six points by Hall but that was the largest lead of the game for LU. Eckerd crawled back into the game to tie the game at 19 and then used a 12-3 run to take its largest lead of the game at 31-22 with just under three minutes left in the first half. Lynn cut the gap to three before the half but the Tritons got two more buckets before the half to go up 35-28 at the break.
Paced by two easy layups by Jimmy Gaskins, Lynn came out of the locker room red-hot, going on a 14-7 run to open the second half and then took the lead on a trifecta by Hall. Eckerd responded with its own three and the teams would trade leads through the remainder of regulation. With the score tied at 66 with 40 ticks left in the second half, both teams missed on several opportunities to win it in regulation.
A layup by Jovan Robinson gave Lynn the early 68-66 lead with 4:27 left in the overtime period but it was Lynn's only lead in the extra frame as Eckerd scored the next six points. The Knights would cut the lead to as close as 73-72 on a pair of free throws by Williams with 1:09 remaining but were unable to take the lead as Eckerd finished scoring six of the game's final seven points.
Eckerd outshot Lynn 49.0% to 37.3% with two more made field goals. The Tritons also made one more trey and one more free throw than the Knights who capitalized with nine offensive rebounds leading to nine second-chance points.
