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Geneva College Athletics

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geneva college golden tornadoes
geneva college golden tornadoes
Jimmy11
80
Winner Geneva GEN 12-14
78
Saint Vincent SVC 16-10
Winner
Geneva GEN
12-14
80
Final
78
Saint Vincent SVC
16-10
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 OT 1 F
Geneva GEN 32 38 10 80
Saint Vincent SVC 41 29 8 78

Game Recap: Men's Basketball |

Geneva Stuns Saint Vincent in Overtime

LATROBE, Pa. – The Geneva men's basketball team deserved this.  They fully earned it as well.  In a season in which Geneva has had so many close, late losses, it seemed only right that the Golden Tornadoes would finally find itself on the winning side of one of these nail-biters, and junior Eric McGee's layup with 1.4 seconds remaining in overtime gave Geneva a dramatic upset win over Saint Vincent, 80-78.  Geneva improved to 12-14, and the Golden Tornadoes advanced to take on #1 seed Thomas More in the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) semifinals on Thursday night.
 
Geneva had plenty of reasons to expect the worst coming into the game.  The Golden Tornadoes were coming off of back-to-back double-digit road losses to teams lower in the PAC standings than Saint Vincent.  They had not defeated the Bearcats since 2010, a stretch of 17 straight games.  They could have folded when they fell down by 17 points in the first half.  And they could have fallen apart late when senior Jimmy Leichliter, who had carried the team most of the night with a career-high 33 points, fouled out in overtime.  But on this night the Golden Tornadoes dug deep and found a way to prevail, in large part because Leichliter wouldn't let them lose.
 
The game couldn't have started much worse for Geneva.  Tied at 6-6 five minutes into the game, Saint Vincent went on a 31-14 run over the next eleven minutes to take its biggest lead of the game, 37-20.  Geneva struggled to get stops, and if it wasn't for the fact that Leichliter carried the offensive load in the first half and kept the Golden Tornadoes in the game, Geneva would not have had a chance for the dramatic comeback.  The final four minutes of the first half were key, as Geneva closed on a 12-4 run to cut the deficit back to single digits, 41-32, at the halftime break.  Leichliter scored 19 points, his highest output in a half this season.
 
Saint Vincent maintained that lead early in the second half, even stretching it back out to a double digit margin briefly.  Trailing 47-39, Geneva went on a 9-2 run to close the gap to just one, 49-48, with 11:32 remaining.  Three minutes later, sophomore Ethan Moose hit two free throws to give Geneva its first lead of the game, 56-54.  At that point Saint Vincent responded by scoring the next eight points to take the lead back, 62-56, with six minutes remaining, but the Golden Tornadoes still would not fold.
 
Staring at the end of its season, down six, with six minutes to go, Geneva immediately responded, scoring six of the next seven points to cut the lead back down to one, 63-62.  From there the game went back and forth down to the final buzzer.  The Golden Tornadoes appeared to have a great shot to win the game at the end of regulation when Moose drove the lane with less than a second remaining and appeared to draw significant contact, but no foul was called and the game went to overtime, tied at 70-70.
 
Geneva caught a bad break two minutes into overtime when Leichliter was whistled for a tough fifth foul on a loose ball rebound.  Not only did Leichliter have to go to the bench, but Saint Vincent converted the resulting two free throws to give the Bearcats the lead, 74-72, with three minutes remaining.  At that point, not only was Leichliter out of the game due to fouls, but so was sophomore Nick Rusyn, Geneva's starting center.  However, despite not having those two key players available, the Golden Tornadoes responded by scoring the next six points on back-to-back buckets by sophomore Noah Damazo and one by Moose to give Geneva a 78-74 advantage with 52 seconds remaining. 
 
To Saint Vincent's credit, it did not go away, scoring the next four points, including a bucket with eight seconds remaining to tie the game and set the stage for McGee's heroics.  He took the inbounds pass, dribbled straight up the floor and down the lane, absorbing contact and kissing a layup off the glass with 1.4 seconds remaining to stun the Bearcats.  A last second half-court shot by Saint Vincent missed, and the Geneva players flooded onto the court in celebration of the hard-earned, and well-deserved, victory.
 
"This was an awesome win for our program," an elated Head Coach Jeff Santarsiero said after the game.  "The kids played unbelievable, and I'm so proud for our program and our school.  We got stops when we needed them, and Jimmy was so big for us tonight.  Now we move on and look ahead to Thomas More on Thursday night!"
 
Leichliter's 33 points topped his previous career-high of 30 points accomplished two seasons ago.  The 33 points also tied for the most points scored this year by anyone in the PAC.  He also added 10 rebounds for his third straight double-double, and his sixth overall this season.  Both Moose and McGee added 13 points apiece.  Geneva shot 42% from the floor, including just 4-17 from 3-point range, but it held Saint Vincent to 41% shooting, and the Golden Tornadoes turned the ball over just nine times.  Senior Tom Kromka led the Bearcats with 22 points.
 
Geneva now makes the long trip down to Thomas More for a 7:00 p.m. tipoff on Thursday night.  Despite the fact Thomas More enters as the #1 seed, Geneva played the Saints very tough in both matchups in the regular season, losing by one at home on a last second shot, and then losing a double digit lead late in heartbreaking fashion in the game at Thomas More.  The winner of that game advances to the PAC championship game on Saturday.


Geneva College is a Christ-centered academic community that provides a comprehensive education to equip students for faithful and fruitful service to God and neighbor. Offering over 80 traditional undergraduate majors and programs, Adult Degree Programs with fully online and classroom options, and high-demand graduate degrees, Geneva's programs are recognized for their high quality. U.S. News & World Report ranks Geneva as a Top Three Best Value Regional University with one of the Top 100 engineering programs in the nation. Adhering to the truth of Scripture, a Geneva education is grounded in God's Word as well as in a core curriculum designed to prepare students vocationally to think, write and communicate well in today's world. 
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