LYNCHBURG, VA – On the last day of the 2011-12 regular season, the Randolph College men’s basketball team traveled across town to take on Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) rival Lynchburg College. The WildCats led for most of the game, but poor shooting killed Randolph in a 65-61 loss to the Hornets Saturday afternoon from Turner Gymnasium.
With the loss, the WildCats (12-13/7-9 ODAC) finish the regular season as the ODAC’s No. 6 seed in the league postseason tournament starting this upcoming week. Though nothing is official, it appears Randolph will host No. 11 seed Roanoke College Tuesday evening in the opening round of the tournament in the Randolph Athletics and Dance (RAD) Center with a time to be determined.
Randolph jumped out to an early lead in the first half, scoring 17 of the game’s first 22 points in leading by 12 after 13:54 of the game. The WildCats led for the remainder of the first half, taking a four-point lead into intermission.
After the break, Randolph continued to lead for the first part of the second half before Lynchburg (15-10/9-7 ODAC) took its first lead of the game at 45-44 with 10:57 left. Randolph quickly regained the edge, going up by five with 6:12 left on a lay-up from Dylan Shiflett (Virginia Beach, VA/Cape Henry).
With Randolph up 58-54 with 4:40 left in the game, Lynchburg went on a 7-0 run to take a three-point lead with just under three minutes to play. With less than a minute to go and Lynchburg up two, junior guard Xavier Parham hit a three-pointer to make the lead five and Randolph missed four three-pointers in the last minute to come up short.
Senior Derrick Woods-Morrow (Greensboro, NC/NE Guilford) played his final regular season game Saturday, posting his eighth double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 boards. Junior Colton Hunt (Whittier, NC/Smoky Mountain) chalked up 12 points, four boards and three steals, while Mike Ehilegbu (Raleigh, NC/Ravenscroft) finished with 11 points.
First-year guard Zach Desgain (Richmond, VA/J.R. Tucker) finished with five points and 10 rebounds in 39 minutes of action. Junior Chris Battaglia (Smithfield, VA/Portsmouth) supplied nine points and five rebounds off the bench for the WildCats. Randolph struggled from the floor, shooting 35.3 (18-51) from the floor and only five-of-27 (18.5 percent) from behind the arc.
Lynchburg put four players in double figures, led by the 14 points from Austin Chillemi. Parham had 11 points on four-of-five shooting, and Nate Campbell added 10 points and nine rebounds. Michael Wims finished with nine points and a team-high 11 rebounds for LC.