DANVILLE, VA –The William Peace men's basketball team came up just short of a regular season conference crown, falling to the league champion Cougars of Averett University Friday night. 12 ties and 22 lead changes later in what was the USA South's biggest game of the year, the Pacers were outlasted, 78-73.
WPU drops to 13-11 overall and 9-4 in conference play, while Averett (17-8, 11-3 USAS) clinches the top seed and hosts next week's conference tournament. The Pacers will open first round play next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. after closing the regular season out this Sunday at Greensboro College.
"It's going to be such a great learning experience for our guys, but only if we chose it to be. We can't let this get us down otherwise our season will be over next Thursday," Shields said. "No matter who you play, it's going to be a tough out in the conference tournament, and hopefully we'll get to spend a lot of time in Danville over the next couple of weeks."
Jalen Vince finished off a 9-0, WPU run to jump ahead by as many as seven (18-11) at the 13:06 mark of the first half, but consecutive Cougar threes cut the Pacer's lead to one (20-19) a couple minutes later. Tied 39 all at the break, the Pacers found themselves down two (64-62) with 4:15 to go, but James Contreras Jr. hit only his third three-pointer of the season to extend Averett's lead to five the next time down the court.
Shawn Shaffer hit a jumper, and then Chris Thomas hit from beyond the arc to tie the game (67-67) with 2:30 to play, but the Cougars capped a 7-0 run with less than a minute on the clock to salt it away.
"Our effort was tremendous. We executed our game plan defensively and out-rebounded them, which is very tough to do," said head coach Claude Shields. "But when you go on the road for a championship, and miss some free-throws and miss a lot of shots you normally make, you'd think it's because you've never been there before, which we haven't been."
Despite a 42-40 rebounding edge over the top rebounding team in the conference, the Pacers shot 41.2% (28-of-68) from the field, 25.7% (9-of-35) from deep, and they missed more attempts than they made at the charity stripe with an 8-of-17 (47.1%) outing. Averett went 25-of-59 (42.4%) from the field, 10-of-27 (37%) from the bonusphere, and 18-of-22 (81.8%) from the free-throw line.
Shaffer led the Pacers with a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds. Vince scored 10 to go with with six rebounds and an assist. Thomas added 10 points and four boards, while Bryson Gibson also scored 10 in addition to three rebounds and an assist. Michael Wolf registered seven points, four rebounds, five assists and two steals.
For Averett, it was Trevor West and Bradley Robinson leading the way. West had a game high 20 points, six rebounds and three assists. Robinson had 16 points, eight boards and a pair of assists.
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