LAWRENCEVILLE-Mack Darrow made a three-point field goal at the buzzer, his only field goal of the game, to lead Princeton to a come-from-behind win at Rider Wednesday evening. “Mack bailed us out tonight,” said Princeton head coach Mitch Henderson. “We were very fortunate to win. We just happened to have the ball at the end when time ran out.”
“I’m proud of my team,” said Rider head coach Tommy Dempsey. “I had that feeling tonight that we were not going to lose. I felt we did almost everything right to get it to that point. It was certainly a gut-wrenching loss, to watch that ball go in after what we’ve been through this year. But the kid made a big shot so give him credit.”
Rider junior Jonathon Thompson (Orlando, Fla./Jones) scored a career-high 17 points, including a foul shot with 17.9 seconds left in overtime, to give the Broncs (1-10) a 71-69 lead. “Thompson had a hell of a game,” Henderson said.
“We had some overtime games last year that we lost but none of them hurt as much as this one,” Thompson said. “With the way our season has gone so far we needed this win. We did look better tonight than in our last few games, so we can build on that.”
The Broncs made just 13 of 22 foul shots for the game, including just one of four in the final 20 seconds of overtime. “We could have won it in regulation,” Dempsey said, “and we could have iced it two different times in overtime. But I’m not going to yell at my guys for missing free throws. They wanted the game, they wanted to make those shots.”
Ian Hummer compiled 21 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists to lead Princeton (5-6).
The loss was the sixth in a row for the Broncs. The last time Rider was 1-10 was during the 1943-44 season.
Rider senior Brandon Penn (Philadelphia, Pa./Paul Robeson) made a three-pointer with 21 seconds left in regulation to cut the lead to 65-64 and then stole the ball and was fouled. “That was a good play that the coaches drew up,” Penn said. “I had some space and made the shot.”
He made one of two foul shots to send the game into overtime. “I thought the game was over but I missed that second free throw,” Penn said. Penn finished with seven points.
The Tigers took their first lead of the game, 61-60, with 2:21 remaining in the second half on a lay-up by T. J. Bray, and Bray’s three-pointer gave PU a 64-61 lead with 1:40 remaining in the second half. Bray finished with 11 points and eight rebounds.
Trailing 53-46 mid-way through the second half, Princeton out-scored Rider 11-5, five points by Hummer, to cut the lead to 58-57 with 5:24 remaining.
Princeton scored the final nine points of the first half, six points by Bray, to cut the lead to 38-33 at intermission. “That was the key,” said Henderson, now in his first season as the Tiger head coach. “We played good defense in that stretch and it got us back into it before the half.”
“They responded like a good team does,” Dempsey said of that Tiger run.
Holding a 15-13 lead, Rider went on a 19-5 run, eight points by sophomore Anthony Myles (Dover, DE/Poly-Tech), to take a 34-18 lead. Myles finished with 15 points.
The Broncs jumped out to a 9-2 lead, four points by sophomore Daniel Stewart (Philadelphia, PA/Neumann-Goretti). Stewart, who leads Rider in scoring and rebounding, finished with nine points and 14 rebounds.
Making his Alumni Gym debut, freshman Junior Fortunat (Quebec, Canada/Roman Catholic) added eight points and eight rebounds. Freshman Eddie Mitchell (Philadelphia, PA/La Salle) finished with nine points and three assists.
The game was the first time Princeton had ever played in Alumni Gym. The two teams have now met 12 times since the series began in 1931 with Rider winning three.
The Broncs travel to University of Maryland Baltimore County Saturday evening. Rider defeated UMBC by 42 points last season in Lawrenceville.
“I still believe that going forward good things are going to happen for this team,” Dempsey said. “We’re going to try to write a script of how we came back from 1-10 to salvage our season.”
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