BALTIMORE –
Kenneth Jones scored a career-high 23 points on Monday night, but Lehigh University held off his Loyola University Maryland men's basketball team for a 74-70 Patriot League victory.
Midway through the second half,
Jaylin Andrews scored seven-straight points to cap a 9-0 Loyola run that gave the Greyhounds a 57-55 lead with 8:46 to play, but a Tyler Whitney-Sidney three on the next Mountain Hawks possession put them back in the lead, and they held on for the eventual win.
Jones had 14 of his 23 points after halftime and eclipsed his previous best of 20 points from two different games, including this year's season-opener at DePaul.
Deon Perry added 14 points, and Andrews scored 11 for the Greyhounds.
Lehigh (10-8 overall, 5-2 Patriot League) had built an eight-point lead on a traditional 3-point play by Keith Higgins, Jr., at 13:52, and it as a seven-point advantage on a Higgins floater less than two mintues later.
Chris Kuzemka drew a foul driving to the basket and hit two free throws at 11:38, starting the 9-0 Loyola run. Andrews first pulled-up for a jumper and then hit a three from the left side before converting a layup at 8:16 to give the Greyhounds the lead.
Two
David Brown III free throws with 6:55 left in regulation made it a one-point Lehigh lead again, but the Mountain Hawks extended that to eight on two occasions, including with 1:31 to play.
Jones drained a three and then scored in the paint to get it to 69-66 with 1:31 left, and
Golden Dike made two free throws at 1:04 to pull Loyola (7-13, 2-5) within a pair, 70-68.
Higgins, who had a game-high 27 points, made four free throws, however, in the final 15 seconds to seal the game.
Loyola controlled a 35-30 advantage on the boards with Dike grabbing eight and
Alonso Faure coming down with seven. The Greyhounds also had the edge in turnovers, committing 13 to the Mountain Hawks' 15.
The Greyhounds will be off for five days before heading to New England for a Saturday, January 21, game at Boston University.
