FAYETTE, Mo. – The Raven Men's Basketball team overcame a season-low 3-point total on Monday night with a season-high 52 points in the paint. Despite the effort in the paint, Central Methodist University was able to hold off Benedictine in double-overtime to earn an 88-83 win.
The Ravens and the Eagles combined to score 98 points in the paint with the Ravens holding a 52-46 advantage,
Central Methodist jumped out to as much as a 12-point lead by the midpoint of the first half as it took almost two minutes for the Ravens to tally their first points of the game when Colby Nickels scored the Ravens first basket – the first of the team's 52 points in the paint.
Benedictine outscored CMU 21-16 over the final 10 minutes of the half to pull within five points, 39-34 at the half. Benedictine finished the first half shooting 46.4 percent from the field with 13 field goals while CMU finished the half at 53.8 percent with 14 field goals.
Chris Jackson scored the Ravens first basket of the second half, one of their four 3-pointers, to pull Benedictine within two points before CMU responded with a 9-0 run to push back ahead by 10 points. That would be the biggest lead of the second half for the Eagles. Trailing 52-42, Benedictine erased the second 10-point CMU advantage using a 17-6 run to take their first lead of the game on a basket by Matt Austin with just under eight minutes left in the second half.
From that point, the game went back and forth playing through three ties and three lead changes before heading to overtime tied at 72. CMU pulled ahead by four points in the first overtime before Nickels scored with just over 90 seconds left in the first overtime to tie the game at 78 points where it remained headed into the second overtime.
CMU doubled up Benedictine 10-5 in the second overtime to earn the win. Benedictine finished the game shooting 42.7 percent from the floor while CMU finished at 50 percent. Three Ravens finished in double figures, led by Austin's 21 points. Tyson Cathy added 15 points and 9 rebounds while Nickels finished with 12.
The Ravens wrap up their current three-game road swing on Wednesday as they travel to Peru, Neb., to take on Peru State College at 7:30 p.m. before returning home for a 4 p.m. game on Saturday against (RV) MNU.
