RALEIGH, NC – The William Peace University men's basketball team capped off a wild weekend at the Hermann Athletic Center Saturday night, as the Pacers erased a 15-point second half deficit on their way to an 84-78 overtime victory against Maryville College.

WPU (7-9, 2-3 USAS) was down by nine points with a little over two minutes left and trailed 72-67 with 18 ticks remaining. Dakota King made it 72-69 with 10 seconds on the clock after a pair of free-throws, and then Jalen Vince came up with a steal on the ensuing inbounds play to give the Pacers one final chance.

Chris Thomas and Sam Johnson missed a pair of threes, but King cleaned up both offensive rebounds and tipped it out to Vince, who banked in a buzzer-beating triple from the top of the key extending the game to overtime.  



WPU finished the second half with a 13-4 swing and took their first lead all night when Vince drove the lane and scored to start the overtime period. Maryville (12-4, 3-2 USAS) retook the lead with a quick 5-0 spurt, but the Pacers closed the game out on a 10-1 run.

"That was a huge, huge win. They're a really good team," said head coach Claude Shields.  ""It was an awesome play to send it to overtime. We kept crashing, got three looks at the basket and it was just a tremendous job by us to keep fighting."

"When you don't know who's going to lead us in scoring that makes it difficult to prepare for us, and we had seven guys score more than seven points tonight. We have to clean up 20 turnovers, but 21 assists is really playing how we want to play" Shields explained. "Even tonight though, I don't think we played up to our potential. We did at times and never gave up, which is how you have to win some games but if we can keep figuring it out we could be pretty good by the end of the season"

Four Pacers finished in double-figures led by King's career high 20 points. King also grabbed nine boards, dished out a pair of assists and blocked a shot.  Johnson made a pair of clutch threes down the stretch to notch 14 points, four rebounds and a pair of steals. Chris Thomas scored 12 points to go with five rebounds, five assists and two steals. Terry Rogers chipped in with 10 points, one rebound and an assist. Vince added eight points, three rebounds, seven assists and a steal.

Spencer Shoffner carried the Scots with 27 points, four rebounds, a pair of assists and three steals.

The WPU men's basketball team will have a week off before hosting the Battling Bishops of North Carolina Wesleyan Saturday, January 23 at 3:00 p.m.

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