SWARTHMORE, Pa.—Swarthmore College Men's Basketball added another tally to its 2015-16 victory total by topping the Dickinson College Red Devils 82-68 at home on Thursday evening. The Garnet stopped a two-game Centennial Conference skid with the win and improved to 11-3 (5-2 Centennial) on the year. Dickinson dropped to 4-10 (3-3 Centennial). Swarthmore is a perfect 7-0 at Tarble Pavilion this season.
Four Garnet players scored at least points and each of those shot better than 50 percent from the floor. Matt Brennan dropped a team-high 22 points, going 6-for-11 (54.5 percent) from the floor and 8-for-8 from the free-throw line. Zack Yonda also shot 6-for-11 en route to 17 points. With forward Chris Bourne out of the lineup Thursday, big men Robbie Walsh and Sean Thaxter stepped up to provide 15 and 12 points, respectively. Walsh shot 6-for-9 (66.7 percent) from the floor and Thaxter hit 4-of-5 shots from the floor (80 percent). Walsh had 13 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the year.
Swarthmore cleaned up off the glass, grabbing 45 rebounds to Dickinson's 29.
After only receiving four free throw attempts at Johns Hopkins University on Tuesday, Swarthmore capitalized on 27 opportunities on Thursday by sinking 25 free throws.
Swarthmore took a nine-point first-half lead after an old-fashioned three-point play by Andrew Kauffman with 13:58 to go. Dickinson connected on six 3-pointers in the first period and briefly took the lead. At 2:17, Thaxter sank a mid-range jump shot to give Swarthmore the 36-35 advantage. Swarthmore maintained a lead for the rest of the contest.
A steal by Brennan set up a Sam Lebryk 3-pointer less than 30 seconds into the second period and gave Swarthmore an eight-point lead. Dickinson pulled within four with 12:52 to go, but the Garnet assembled a 9-0 run in the next two minutes to put the game out of reach. The Garnet lead reached as high as 17 with 7:18 to play.
Swarthmore caps off the three-game week with a home contest against the McDaniel College Green Terror at 3 p.m. on Saturday.
