BALTIMORE, Maryland — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore men's basketball team was seconds away from a road victory until the Coppin State University Eagles made a jumper with 0.3 seconds left to take a 68-67 overtime victory on Monday night (Feb. 10).
"They did a little bit better job of executing down the stretch on both sides of the ball," head coach Jason Crafton said. "It's a tough way to lose a game but we had our opportunities and just didn't convert."
Eastern Shore (3-21, 2-7 MEAC) was able to get off to a good start on Monday night. The Hawks closed out the first half on a run to take the lead. They outscored the Eagles 14-6 in the last five minutes to take a 32-27 lead into halftime. That was fueled in large part to the squad's play off the bench as the non-starters accounted for 23 points in the first 20 minutes.
"We have rotated lineups a lot based on the situation," Crafton said. "Regardless of who we choose to start, we want guys to come in and be ready to play and the guys that came in were ready to go tonight."
When the second half began, Maryland Eastern Shore kept their foot on the gas pedal. A layup from senior AJ Cheeseman (Snellville, Georgia) gave the team a 43-34 lead four minutes into the half. Over the next nine minutes, Coppin State slowly cut into the Hawks' lead. They were able to come back and tie the game at 49 with seven minutes left.
The Eagles held a 58-55 lead with less than a minute left in regulation. Junior Canaan Bartley (Miami, Florida) would hit one of his career-high four 3-pointers with 54 seconds left to tie the score. On the ensuing possession, redshirt junior Marlon Adams (Brooklyn, New York) took a charge and got the Hawks the ball with 43 seconds on the clock.
After a timeout, Cheeseman's jumper fell short and Coppin State came right up the court without calling a timeout. They ran the clock down got a good look at a 3-pointer by Koby Thomas, but it did not go in and the game headed to an extra session.
Bartley made a shot from long range two minutes into overtime to score the first points for either team since regulation. The Eagles would answer with a dunk, but senior Bryan Urrutia (Chihuahua, Mexico) made a shot from behind the arc right when the Hawks came back up the floor to make the score 64-60 with 2:25 left.
CSU went on a 6-0 run over the next two minutes. They made a three, a free throw and a layup to take a 66-64 lead with 27 seconds.
The Shore rushed back up the court after the bucket from the home team. Freshman Da'Shawn Phillip (Baltimore, Maryland) would then give his home fans something to cheer for as he rose up from the top of the key and hit a 3-pointer to put the squad up 67-66 with 10 seconds remaining. Coppin State elected to not call timeout as they did to end regulation and this time Dejuan Clayton came through for the Eagles and sank a 15-foot jumper from the left wing.
"We got the 3-point shot from Da'Shawn that got us the lead and we're conditioned to get back," Crafton said. "But we reached and gave a good player a chance to get a full head of steam and he made a play."
Cheeseman scored a team-high 17 points off the bench for Eastern Shore. Bartley had 12 and Phillip finished with 10 on the night.
Clayton had a game-high 20 points. Brendan Medley-Bacon was a force inside for CSU as he finished with 17 points and 17 rebounds. He was the catalyst for the Eagles on the glass as they won the rebounding battle 50-31.
The Hawks will now come back home for two games against the conference's Florida schools. They will play Bethune-Cookman on Saturday (Feb. 15) at 2 p.m. and Florida A&M on Monday (Feb. 17) at 7:30 p.m.
For more information on Eastern Shore Athletics visit http://www.easternshorehawks.com/.
