SWARTHMORE, Pa.—Dating back to 1994, Swarthmore College Men's Basketball had only beaten the Franklin & Marshall College Diplomats four times. Swarthmore hadn't beaten F&M since 2013, head coach
Landry Kosmalski's first season. On Saturday, the Garnet got the proverbial monkey off their backs with a 58-56 win at home over the Diplomats.
Even more important than stopping a 10-game losing streak to the Dips, was Swarthmore claiming the top-seed in the Centennial Conference postseason and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
F&M and Swarthmore, and Johns Hopkins University, entered Saturday's regular-season finale in a three-way tie for first place in the league. Because of the way the tie-breaking scenarios worked out, the right to host the conference tournament would fall to the winner of the F&M/Swarthmore game.
The Garnet lingered out of the gate and fell behind 9-2. F&M's lead held at seven points after a layup from Brandon Federici put him past the 2,000-point mark for his career, making him the first Centennial Conference player to do so.
Swarthmore began to rally with five minutes to go in the first after
Zack Yonda cashed in on a 3-pointer from the left corner. Yonda ended up with a game-high 16 points.
A successful alley-oop from
Jim Lammers finished by
Robbie Walsh brought Swarthmore within three points with 3:54 to play.
F&M stretched the lead back to eight but five straight points from Yonda to close out the half made it a three-point gap once again by halftime.
In the first six minutes of the second half, Swarthmore loomed large in the paint, recording five blocks in that time. The Garnet took their first lead of the game with 18:10 to go off a short hook shot from
Zac O'Dell.
The teams continued to trade blows throughout the second half. Swarthmore gained some breathing room with a 6-0 run that ended with 2:44 to play. The Garnet led by five points with under a minute to play after a clutch layup by
Cam Wiley on an isolation play, but Franklin & Marshall kept things interesting with a deep 3-pointer from guard Matthew Tate on the other end.
Swarthmore, up by two (58-56), tried to use up as much time as possible before taking a 3-pointer. The Garnet missed, but Walsh corralled the offensive rebound. A held ball on the rebound had Swarthmore inbound the ball from underneath their own basket. Walsh was fouled before the throw-in with 10.5 seconds left on the clock but was unable to hit the free throws. F&M picked up the rebound and after taking a pair of timeouts set up a final play. Federici then attempted the game-winning 3-pointer from the right wing but missed the contested shot.
Swarthmore held on for the 58-56 win and gets ready to host the Centennial Conference semifinals and finals on Friday and Saturday. Swarthmore, the one-seed, will play the winner of the Ursinus/Dickinson game on Friday. F&M and Johns Hopkins will battle each other in the other semifinal on Friday.
Yonda, as mentioned earlier, led everyone with 16 points. O'Dell had a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds and also had four blocks. Wiley dropped 12 points off the bench to go along with six rebounds and three assists. Walsh reached double-digits with 10 points and had five rebounds and five blocks.
