RALEIGH, NC – The William Peace University men's basketball team capped an entertaining Friday night of basketball at the Hermann Athletic Center following the women's triple-overtime thriller. Unfortunately for the Pacers, the Scots came away with a dramatic, 79-77, buzzer-beating victory.

WPU drops to 6-9 overall with a 1-3 mark in the USA South, all of which have been tightly contested games. The Pacers four conference games have been decided by a combined margin of 12 points, with their lone win coming against preseason favorites Averett University a couple days ago. Covenant improves to 8-6 this year with a 3-1 record in conference play.

Four Pacers reached double-figures led by 14 points, five rebounds and a steal from Chris Thomas. Dakota King finished with 13 points, four rebounds and an assist. Jalen Vince added 11 points, two rebounds and three assists. Nate Strother notched 10 points, two rebounds, three assists and a steal. Kori Anderson also chipped in with nine points on 4-of-5 (80%) shooting in 19 minutes off the bench.

"I think we may have had a little too much of a hangover from the Averett game. It took us a while to wake up and you can't spot teams 15 points, especially in the second half," said head coach Claude Shields. "I thought we did a good job in the first half of forcing shots we wanted, and they made some tough shots. They're a good team. In the second half they got a lot of stuff at the rim…we couldn't keep their guards in front of us."

"We've shown what we can do in spurts. We're really, really close and I firmly believe that, so hopefully we can figure it out in the next couple games." Shields added. "We have yet to play a full 40 minutes the way we want to play. If we can figure it out, I think we can be a deadly team. But you can't keep saying it. You have to go do it."

Anderson scored five straight and then Thomas capped a 7-0 spurt for a 17-11 WPU lead just more than eight minutes in. Covenant went into the break up eight though, closing the first half on a 24-10 run thanks in large part to eight turnovers committed by the Pacers.

The Scots kept the momentum rolling into the second, pulling ahead 55-40 on a three-pointer from TJ Cox with 13:38 to play, until the Pacers finally came to life. The Pacers went on a 26-6 run, taking a 66-61 lead with less than eight minutes left.  Vince put an exclamation point on the run with a posterizing dunk over a Covenant defender



Vince's dunk nearly brought the roof down, but the Scots stole some momentum back coming out of the under-eight timeout with a quick 8-0 burst that pushed them back in front, 69-66.

Both teams traded buckets down the stretch down to the very last second. Nate Strother took it to the rack and tied the game at 77 with about 10 ticks remaining. Will Portlock ended up with the ball in his hands on the Scots' ensuing possession. Isolated with a defender on the baseline about 15 feet from the basket, Portlock took a quick glance at the clock, stepped back for a contested fade-away jumper and found the bottom of the net.

Portlock finished with 13 points, 11 of which came in the second half, and he was one of five Scots in double-figures for the night. Bailey Spragg finished with 17 points, three rebounds, three assists and a steal, while   Cox added 16 points despite dealing with foul trouble throughout  much of the contest. Portlock, Spragg and Cox combined to shoot at a 80% going 20-of-25 from the field.

The WPU men's basketball team turns around on short rest, hosting another tough opponent in Maryville College Saturday at 6:00 p.m.

Video coverage and live stats will be available for the contest. Daron Vaught will be on the call for the Pacers' Basketball network.

For the latest news and updates from William Peace University Athletics, please visit: http://gopeacepacers.com/.