SWARTHMORE, Pa.—Despite it being the middle of winter break, Swarthmore College's Tarble Pavilion continued to be a tough place for opponents to play as the top-ranked Garnet won their 21st straight home game in front of a lively crowd on Thursday night.
The No. 1 Garnet improved to 10-0 this year after fighting off the pesky University of Rochester Yellowjackets 59-56. Rochester took just its second loss of the year, falling to 8-2.
Contending with a tall Rochester lineup and playing their first game since Dec. 10, the Garnet compiled their worst shooting night of the year—sinking just 34.5 percent of their shots. Rochester had the second-best shooting night of any Swarthmore opponent this year (43.1 percent), but Swarthmore gained an advantage on the glass. The Garnet out-rebounded the visitors 41-33 and gave the Yellowjackets just their second game this season with a negative rebounding margin (both losses).
Two players reached double digits in scoring for Swarthmore. Freshman Vinny DeAngelo earned his first start at point guard and produced a team-leading 12 points in 24 minutes of play. George Visconti tallied up 10 points in the win. Nate Shafer flirted with a double-double as he collected nine points and eight rebounds, five on the offensive end. Swarthmore registered 14 offensive boards to extend possessions.
Six-foot-10 Ryan Algier led Rochester with a game-high 22 point on 8-of-10 shooting.
While the final score was close, Swarthmore had the lead for 82.8 percent of the game and led by as many as 10 points in the second half.
Swarthmore held a two-point lead with six minutes left in the first half but then darted out on an 8-0 run over the next three minutes and change. The Garnet took a six-point lead into halftime and a 3-pointer from Abass Sallah bumped their lead back up to 10 points with 15:35 left in the second.
Rochester closed the gap and overtook the Garnet by two with 4:37 remaining after an Algier triple. A gutsy layup underneath by Shafer evened the score at 51-51 with 4:18 left and set up a quick 7-0 Garnet run. In that run, with 2:40 left, Zac O'Dell slapped a Rochester layup off the backboard in an intimidating block that led to a jump shot for Colin Shaw on the other end.
Forced to play the free throw game to stop the clock, Rochester sent Swarthmore to the line and the Garnet took care of business. With two seconds left and up one, Shaw was sent to the line and sank both free throws to make it 59-56 Swarthmore. The Yellowjackets had one last attempt to tie the contest but O'Dell stole the inbounds pass and secured the victory.
Swarthmore is back in action at 3 p.m. Sunday at Stevens Institute of Technology. Stevens is 9-1 and fresh off a win over No. 13 Johns Hopkins.
