YORK, Pa.—No. 12 Swarthmore College Men's Basketball took its first loss of the season, losing on the road to the undefeated York College Spartans (8-0). The Garnet dipped to 8-1 with the 83-79 non-conference loss.
Four Garnet players reached double-digits in points. Zack Yonda led Swarthmore with 21 points while shooting 7-for-10 from the floor. Nate Shafer came off the bench and added 15 points on a 6-for-7 shooting night. He also corralled nine rebounds.
Cam Wiley returned to the double-digit scoring mark with 13 points. Freshman Ryan Ingram tallied a career-best 11 points.
In both halves, Swarthmore fouls awarded the Spartans the double bonus. The host Spartans earned 20 of their 83 points from the free-throw line but shot just 64.5 percent from the line. Both Shafer and Robbie Walsh were disqualified after picking up five personal fouls.
Swarthmore went 13-for-22 (59.1 percent) from the charity stripe.
The Garnet held a 37-32 rebounding advantage, and Zac O'Dell led the way with 12 boards.
The Spartans had four players with at least 10 points, including two players with 20 or more. Matt Scamuffo scored 20 and Dalton Meyers had a game-high 22. Scamuffo and Myers combined for seven of York's 15 3-pointers. Swarthmore connected on eight attempts from long distance.
Wednesday night's game teetered back-and-forth throughout the contest with the score getting tied at eight different points and the lead changing hands 12 other times.
The Garnet led by seven points with seven minutes to go in the first half (30-23). However, York soon sprung for seven straight points and led by three points with a minute to go. Swarthmore recovered and a layup by Yonda in the closing seconds of the first half gave the Garnet a 38-37 advantage going into the locker room.
A 10-1 run by the Spartans in the middle of the second half gave them some much needed separation. Swarthmore, however, recovered the lead at 7:07 to go on a triple from Yonda. York then went on another run, scoring nine straight points.
The Garnet pulled to within two points by the 2:20 mark, but couldn't close the gap and fell by a final score of 83-79.
Swarthmore is back in action at home on Dec. 30 against Framingham State.
