LANCASTER, Pa.—Swarthmore College Men's Basketball is headed to the conference championship. The last time those words were uttered was 19 years ago, Feb. 26, 1997.
Swarthmore's finals drought came to an end on Friday night when the Garnet advanced into the 2016 Centennial Conference Championship with a 77-73 victory against the Dickinson College Red Devils. The Garnet (20-6) held a double-digit lead at halftime and fought off a late second-half surge by the Red Devils (13-13) to secure the four-point win.
Sophomore Robbie Walsh scored a game-high 22 points while grabbing 11 rebounds, blocking three shots and recording three steals. Walsh got the Garnet's offensive machine going in the first half, scoring nine of Swarthmore's first 13 points in the opening five minutes.
Three other Garnet players joined Walsh in double-figures. Matt Brennan went 8-for-9 from the free-throw line and finished with 16 points. Zack Yonda provided 13 points and went 4-for-4 from the free-throw line. Senior Shane Loeffler got the start at point guard on Friday and knocked down three 3-pointers en route to a 12-point night.
Sean Thaxter and Cam Wiley each chipped in six points. Henry Cousineau scored two and corralled eight rebounds.
The Garnet edged the Red Devils on the glass 35-34.
In the first half, the Garnet pushed to an 11-point lead following a trey from Yonda that made the game 26-15 with 8:48 to go. Threes by Loeffler and Brennan on the next two Garnet possessions bumped their lead to 15. By halftime the Garnet lead stood at 10, 38-28.
Dickinson's shooting improved in the second half to 50 percent up from 36 percent in the first half. Ted Hinnenkamp, the conference's leading scorer, was held to five points in the first half but added 14 points in the second half for a team-high 19. Teammate Mike Hinkley added 10 of his 15 points in the latter period.
Swarthmore's lead evaporated with 11:04 left after a 10-0 Dickinson run. The Garnet recovered with a quick 6-0 run, but the Red Devils stuck around and knotted the game at 59-59 and then took the lead on a Hinnenkamp 3-pointer with 6:03 left.
The Garnet, who were in the bonus, did what needed to be done from the free-throw line, sinking 9-of-11 free throws the rest of regulation.
With 1:30 to go, Swarthmore took a timeout, clinging to a 68-67 lead. Brennan drove hard to the hoop, sank a layup and drew the foul, resulting in a three-point play. However, the advantage was immediately canceled out the next Dickinson possession as Brandon Angradi drew a foul beyond the arc and sank all three of the free throws.
A little hook shot from Walsh with 51 seconds left followed by a free throw the next possession gave Swarthmore a four-point edge with 32 seconds left.
Still, too much time remained for there to be any celebration yet, and Dickinson earned an old-fashioned three-point play to pull within one point again.
Matt Brennan was sent to the line twice the rest of the way and hit three of those four attempts. The Garnet defense held Dickinson to two tough 3-point attempts on the last two possessions and Robbie Walsh secured the final rebound to wrap up the Centennial Semifinal victory.
Swarthmore plays top-seeded Franklin & Marshall in the Centennial Conference finals on Saturday at 7 p.m. on F&M's campus.
CORRECTION: A previous edition incorrectly had 1991 as the last time the Garnet advanced to the Conference Championship.
NOTE: In 1991, the Garnet also happened to have a four-point win over Dickinson College in the conference semifinals. That final score was 76-72. The Garnet's most recent playoff win was against Johns Hopkins on Feb. 26, 1997. The Garnet won that game 53-42.
