Mocs Fall in Overtime to Open Christmas Classic

LAKELAND, Fla. – The Florida Southern College men's basketball team fell Saturday night 95-89 in overtime to the visiting Dolphins of Le Moyne College to open the 2021 Mocs Christmas Classic inside Streamline Sale Arena at George W. Jenkins Field House. The Moccasins trailed 43-32 at the halftime break and used a strong second half to take a lead midway through the period. The Dolphins made a push of their own late in the period and hit a 3-pointer with nine seconds left in regulation to tie the contest at 83-83.  The Dolphins continued their run into the overtime period where they pulled away for the six-point victory.

"Very disappointing loss," Head Coach Mike Donnelly commented after the game. "Disappointed with our effort in the first half, but was proud of how we fought back and took control of the second half to get an eight point lead with 3:25 to play, I was happy about that. We broke down and had some bad execution down the stretch so that's disappointing and a hard loss to take."
 
Florida Southern (5-6) was led by redshirt junior guard DeAndre Campbell who scored a team-high 23 points off the bench. The St. Louis, Mo. native connected on a trio of 3-pointers while going 8-of-14 from the field including 3-for-5 from long range. Graduate student Jack Casale chipped in 19 points while knocking down four of his seven attempts from 3-point range. Casale also finished second on the squad with four assists.

Donnelly expressed about his junior guard's performance, "He had a really good night for us. We needed it because some of our other key guys were a bit off tonight but that makes a good team. To get that type of production from DeAndre was huge for us and hopefully he can be consistent and have another good game tomorrow."
 
Redshirt junior E.J. Dambreville picked up his fifth double-double of the season with 16 points and a team-high 12 rebounds. The Dorchester, Mass. native grabbed six boards on the offensive end as well as six on the defensive glass. He also led the team with five assists. Redshirt freshman Wes Bongiorni played 21 strong minutes off the bench and finished with 10 points and seven rebounds while going 5-of-6 from the field.
 
Luke Sutherland paced the Le Moyne (6-5) offensive attack with a game-high 27 points. Kevin Constant joined his teammate in the 20-over club with 22 points, nine of which came at the free throw line.
 
The Dolphins came out of the gates firing as they jumped out to an 11-2 lead just three minutes into the contest. That lead would eventually balloon to their largest of the game at 38-25 with just 3:23 remaining in the first half. The Dolphins eventually took a 43-32 lead into the locker room at the break.
 
After a Le Moyne free throw to open the second period scoring, the Mocs hit back-to-back 3-pointers, one each from Casale and redshirt freshman Jadin Booth to cut the deficit to just six. After some back-and-forth action over the next several minutes, the Mocs made their move and went on a 14-0 run to open their largest lead of the contest up until that point, 64-56. Five different scorers contributed to the run which was capped off by a Casale 3-pointer with 10:35 remaining in regulation. The Mocs controlled the lead for nearly the entire rest of the second half eventually taking their largest advantage of the game at 77-68 on a Campbell 3-pointer with 4:17 left.
 
The Dolphins cut the Mocs' lead to just one with 1:28 remaining thanks to a 7-0 run of their own. Dambreville ended the run with a layup with 49 ticks on the clock to push the advantage back to three. A Dolphin jumper once again cut the led to one but Campbell responded with a pair of free throws which set up the late-game heroics by Le Moyne's Jeremiah Washington who scored his seventh, eighth, and ninth points of the game on a 3-pointer with nine seconds remaining to tie the contest at 83. Dambreville tried to answer for the Mocs but had his desperation 3-pointer blocked from just over halfcourt as the clock hit zero sending the game to overtime.
 
The Dolphins took their first lead since the 12:26 mark of the second half as they opened the scoring in overtime with a 3-pointer. They would not trail from that point on as the Mocs were unable to regain the lead. The margin eventually widened to six points as time expired giving the Dolphins their sixth win of the season.
 
FSC out-rebounded the Dolphins 43-38 while Le Moyne held the advantage in shooting, connecting on 50.7 percent (34-67) of its shots compared to the Mocs 42.1 percent (32-76).
 
Up Next
Florida Southern will close out the Mocs Christmas Classic tomorrow, Dec. 19, inside the Jenkins Field House as the Mocs take on Cedarville who won an overtime thriller versus Saint Leo Saturday night in the opening game of the men's side of the Mocs Christmas Classic.