On Wednesday the Shippensburg University men’s basketball team traveled to East Stroudsburg to take on the PSAC leading Warriors. The matchup marked the second time these two teams have met this season, the first ending in a 73-69 victory for the Warriors (15-7, 13-5 PSAC East). This time the Raiders (12-9, 8-9 PSAC East) would finish the job and defeat ESU 72-71.
The first half didn’t go the way Shippensburg had hoped, trailing 40-27, and it was starting to look like the game was getting away from them. Senior center Dylan Edgar had yet to attempt a shot and only had one rebound in his stat line. The big man would return in the second half and put up a team leading 21 points on 10-of-14 shooting. The senior also finished with four blocks, tying a career high, and eight rebounds.
Despite Edgar’s spectacular performance, freshman Justin McCarthur was the talk of the night turning in 19 points on 6-of-10 shooting and 3-of-6 from beyond the ark. McCarthur played all forty minutes and was able to rack up eight assists, seven rebounds, and three steals.
The Warriors continued their success in the second half and led by sixteen at one point but the Raiders would not go down easy. That sixteen point lead became just two in a matter of four minutes. This run combined with some shutdown defense in the final minutes led the Raiders to victory. With the game up for grabs at the 2:15 mark, McCarthur hit the go-ahead three-pointer to pull the raiders to a 70-68 lead. ESU didn’t respond and had to foul McCarthur with nine seconds to go extending the lead to four. A late three-ball by ESU was too little too late after almost six minutes of no scoring to end the game.
The Slate welcomes thoughtful discussion on all of our stories, but please keep comments civil and on-topic. Read our full guidelines here.