GREENSBURG, PA- The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg men's basketball team was edged out by La Roche University, 79-75, in front of packed Chambers Hall on Wednesday evening. La Roche's Darius Lawrence silenced the electric crowd when he laid in the game winning bucket with 7 seconds left to give the Bobcats their first home loss of the season.
Pitt-Greensburg ends the regular season with a 20-5 overall record and 16-4 conference mark. The Redhawks improve to 18-6 and 18-1, as they have clinched the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference regular season title and hosting rights to the AMCC Tournament.
Cam Seigfreid led five Bobcats in double figures with 15 points. Torian Jenkins netted 14 on 6-of-10 shooting, while Brady Kingston was 5-for-7 from the floor to tally 11 points. Isaiah Zeise dropped in a career best 10 points, and Cody Spaid added another 10 with a game best 7 assists.
After Pitt-Greensburg made the first basket of the game, La Roche erupted for 16 of the next 19 points to gain an early, 16-5, advantage and force a Bobcat timeout at the 14:15 mark. The Redhawks sank 4-of-6 three pointers and held the Bobcats to 1-for-10 shooting during the opening run.
Pitt-Greensburg came out of the timeout and rattled off 14 straight points to storm back out in front. IZeise started the run with a lay in at 14:02 and Tommy Arbuckle finished it off with a layup four minutes later, that made the score 19-16 Bobcats. UPG sank 6-of-7 field goals on the spurt, while La Roche was 0-for-6.
The Bobcats maintained the lead for the remainder of the half after the Arbuckle lay in. No team netted more than two baskets in a row in the closing 10 minutes of the first half. Jenkins dropped in a bucket nine seconds before the halftime horn to give Pitt-Greensburg a 35-31 lead.
UPG stayed ahead for the first 12 and a half minutes of the second half, for the initial five of that their lead stayed at 4 or less. The next minute and a half saw the Bobcats go on a 6-0 run to get the lead up to eight, 55-47, with 13:26 remaining in the game.
La Roche cut it back down to a two-point game at the 10:58 mark, Nate Burt responded with a layup followed by a three ball by Kingston to push the Bobcat lead back to seven, 62-55.
The ensuing nine points went to the Redhawks resulting in 64-62 edge for LRU with seven minutes to play, their first lead since the 10:35 mark of the first half.
Tyler Fredrick, the game's leading scorer, scored his 27th point of the night with 1:27 remaining to stretch the Redhawks lead to four points. Kingston scored out of a Bobcat timeout, and Spaid laid in a bucket after a missed jumper by La Roche to tie the game with 37 seconds left on the clock.
LRU ran the shot clock all the way down, then Darius Lawrence drove from left to right to make the go-ahead layup with seven ticks remaining.
The Bobcats got an open look on the other end, but their three-point attempt hit off the back iron and went out of bounds with four seconds remaining. La Roche had an inbounds pass knocked out of bounds and avoided a five second violation by calling a timeout, before connecting on a deep pass for a layup to seal the victory.
UPG outscored LRU in the paint 52-36 and outshot them 55% to 44.8% in the narrow loss.
Pitt-Greensburg has secured the second seed in the AMCC Tournament. With the two seed, they will receive a bye into the semifinals. Their semifinal contest will be on Friday (Feb. 28) versus a to be determined opponent. Both the semifinals and championship (Saturday, Feb. 29) of the tournament will be played at La Roche University.
