Boxscore
PHILADELPHIA – The Goldey-Beacom College men's basketball team gave a valiant effort, but without the school's all-time leading scorer Sam McDuffie in the lineup due to injury, the Lightning came up short once again in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Finals, losing the battle of the conference No. 1 seeds to the North's Bloomfield, 94-81 on Sat. night at the Campus Center.
While the Lightning's 2010-11 campaign fell just short of the school's first-ever CACC Tournament championship and NCAA Tournament berth, head coach Chuck Hammond's squad ended the season having matched last year's school-record 19 wins and earned the school's first-ever CACC South Division regular season championship.
Bloomfield, meanwhile, advances to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in five years as the Deacons avenged a bitter, 84-82 semifinal loss to the Lightning in last year's semifinals.
Senior forward Terrence Parkes led four Lightning scorers in double figures with 23 points and eight rebounds. Senior point guard Azeez Ellegood played all 40 minutes despite a nagging back injury he suffered at the end of the semifinal game the previous night. He registered 19 points, five assists, three rebounds and two steals. Both Parkes and Ellegood were named to the All-Tournament Team for their efforts.
Senior guards Darnell Cephas and Jon Crawford added 15 and 12 points, respectively and combined for five rebounds and five assists.
The Lightning made 12 three-point field goals compared to just three by the Deacons, but Bloomfield defeated GBC for the first time in four meetings by dominating the glass, 54-23 and out-shooting the Lightning from the field, 48-percent to 43-percent.
CACC Player of the Year and Tournament most valuable player, Gage Daye led all scorers with 24 points and four assists, while junior forward Matt Wafula (21 points, 12 rebounds) and senior guard Ryan Rodrigues (20 points, seven rebounds) also powered a relentless Deacon attack to help BC avenge its only home loss of the season and win its 11th game in 12 tries. BC outscored GBC in the paint, 40-30 and 23-9 in second-chance points.
The Campus Center first-half atmosphere was electric as vocal fans from both sides made their presence felt each time their respective team went on a run. And the first half was chock full of runs as the top two teams combined for six lead changes and four ties in the first 20 minutes of action.
Daye scored the first four points of the game and helped Bloomfield, the visiting team in this one because the head-to-head matchup favored GBC, to an early 6-2 lead. Parkes, who scored the Lightning's first two points of the game, also scored the next six as he converted an and-one layup and the free-throw and then knocked down a three-pointer to knot the score at eight apiece.
Following a tip-in by BC's Woody Eliezer and a media timeout at 15:34, Cephas buried a three to give the Lightning their first lead of the game, 11-10 at the 15:23 mark. But the Deacons regained the lead with two consecutive easy layups, both created by offensive rebounds, and went back up by three.
Trailing 16-13 after a jumper by Daye, Cephas knocked down another long-range shot off an assist from graduate student forward Rich Flemming to tie the score at 16. Flemming later put in a layup off a pretty feed inside by Ellegood, and the Lightning were back in front, 18-16.
Rodrigues' jumper at 12:18 tied the score at 18, but two consecutive Lightning layups by Ellegood and Cephas, both assisted by senior guard Ido Yehuda, gave the Lightning a 22-18 advantage. Later, an Ellegood three-pointer would extend the lead to five, 25-20 at the 9:36 mark.
With a 27-22 lead, GBC then let the Deacons go on a 16-3 spell highlighted by eight Rodrigues points and four by Wafula. Ahmad Harris capped off the run with a pair of free-throws to put BC up 38-30 with 2:22 to play in the first stanza.
Right back came the Lightning though with a quick 10-0 burst to claim a 40-38 lead with 38 seconds left before the halftime horn. First Ellegood and Parkes canned a pair at the line, and then freshman guard A.J. Picard and Crawford hit successive three-pointers, both off assists by Ellegood. The Lightning faithful erupted with every made basket, and the “de-fense” cheers grew louder and louder.
Unfortunately for GBC, Daye quieted the crowd with a three-pointer with 19 seconds left, and Bloomfield would take a 41-40 lead into halftime thanks to that shot. The Deacons would never trail again the rest of the way.
Bloomfield opened the second half on a 16-6 tear as the Deacons pushed the margin to double-digits, 57-46 courtesy of three layups and three tip-ins.
But Goldey-Beacom would not go down without a fight, as the Lightning trimmed the deficit to four on five separate occasions midway through the period, including a 67-63 score following two free-throws by Ellegood with 7:52 to play.
At that point, Bloomfield engineered an 11-2 scoring run, capped by a pair of foul shots by Kevin Udo (eight points, 11 rebounds) with 4:35 left to make it a 78-65 game. GBC countered by scoring 14 of the next 21 points, pulling within 85-79 on an Ellegood layup at the 1:27 mark, but that was as close as the South Division champs would get the rest of the way.
The Deacons converted 9-of-12 at the line and allowed only a Parkes layup over the last 1:22 as the 13-point final margin was the largest spread throughout the game.
