Men’s Basketball Avoids Second Half Upset with Continental Victory

Middlebury (17-8, 6-4) kept its season alive with an 81-75 defeat of the Hamilton College Continentals (14-11, 5-5) in Pepin Gymnasium on Saturday, Feb. 22. The game marked the eighth straight season in which Middlebury had hosted a NESCAC playoff game by earning one of the top four seeds by virtue of its regular season performance. Hamilton, meanwhile, competed in the NESCAC tournament for just the second time.

Middlebury will play number eight Williams College in the semifinals to be hosted by Amherst College, the top seed. Middlebury played Williams at home on Friday, Jan. 31 in what was possibly the most gut-wrenching defeat of the season. Leading the Ephs, who were ranked 11th in the nation at the time, by 16 at halftime, Middlebury struggled defensively in the second half en route to a 64-61 loss.

In a similar fashion, the Panthers had a large first half lead on Saturday against Hamilton. The contest was neck-and-neck for the first five minutes, when Hamilton forward Bradley Gifford put the Continentals up one with 15:01 remaining in the first half. After Hunter Merryman ’15 knocked down a three-pointer, one of his three treys in a team-leading 17-point effort, Middlebury took the lead and never relinquished its advantage. The Panthers outscored Hamilton 32-20 in the remainder of the first half to take a 13-point advantage into halftime up 46-33. Middlebury did especially well on the boards, leading the Continentals 20-12 in that department.

With the memory of many early second half letdowns looming, Middlebury opened the latter 20 minutes with a 15-6 run, capped off by an awe-inspiring alley-oop from Joey Kizel ’14 to Dylan Sinnickson ’15 who threw the ball through the iron with two hands to the excitement of the Pepin crowd.

The wind seemed to escape the Panthers’ sails after the Sinnickson flourish, however. The Continentals retaliated with 12 straight points to make it 61-51 in favor of Middlebury. The margin hovered around 10 until the last two minutes. In the final 2:05 of the game, Middlebury went 6-11 from the free throw line, almost handing the game over to Hamilton. With the Panthers clinging to a four-point lead, Merryman hauled down the rebound on a missed three-pointer from sophomore Continental guard Matt Hart, who scored 30 points in these teams’ last meeting, with ten seconds on the clock. Merryman passed the ball to Kizel, who was fouled and clinched the victory by making both free throws.

As a team, the Panthers were very efficient from the floor, shooting 53.8 percent from the field and 56.2 percent from beyond the arc, but only 69.6 percent from the line. Merryman added four rebounds to his outstanding offensive performance. Kizel tallied 14 points, six rebounds, six assists and two steals to go along with the aforementioned game-clinching free throws. Sinnickson went 5-11 from the field for 12 points and added five rebounds.

The rest of the starting lineup, James Jensen ’14 and Jack Roberts ’14, combined for 18 points, nine rebounds, four assists, two block and a steal. Jake Nidenberg ’16 and Dean Brierley ’15 each played tremendously off the bench, adding six and five points respectively. Jake Brown ’17 had a major impact despite not lighting up the stat sheet, tallying just five points. However, the first-year guard logged 29 minutes and did the majority of the work locking down Hart, who went 4-11 for 11 points, the NESCAC’s leading scorer during the regular season.

“Going into this game Coach told me I’d be seeing a lot of minutes on [Hart],” Brown said. “He is a tremendous player that can do almost everything. Guarding him was tough, and I think he ranks among the top guards in the league.”

The Panthers need to beat Williams and follow that up with a win in the NESCAC tournament championship over the winner of the game between Amherst, ranked seventh in the nation, and fifth-seeded Trinity, who upset Bowdoin 71-67 in the first three overtime game in NESCAC tournament history on Saturday, Feb. 22, in order to make their seventh straight NCAA tournament.

“This Saturday’s game against Williams is going to be awesome,” Brown said. “A lot of emotion and energy will be in the gym and we need to play 40 minutes of basketball.”