Elon MBB’s Late Comeback Falls Short in Loss to Charleston on Senior Night

ELON, N.C. – Elon University men’s basketball attempted to make a comeback after College of Charleston’s run to open the second half, but the run fell short as the Phoenix fell on Senior Night, 84-74, Saturday night, Feb. 21, inside Schar Center.

BOX SCORE

Elon (9-20, 5-11 CAA) had five players score in double figures. Tyler Seibring scored a game-high tying 24 points, made four three-pointers and grabbed a team-best six rebounds. Sheldon Eberhardt scored 13, freshmen Andy Packand Kris Wooten tallied 11 apiece, while Nathan Priddy added 10 for the Phoenix. Additionally, Federico Poser finished with a team-high six assists.

College of Charleston (22-8, 11-6 CAA) was paced by a combined 42 points from Jarrell Brantley and Grant Riller. Brantley tallied a double-double with 24 points and 12 rebounds, while Riller scored 18 points and dished out eight assists. Zep Jasper and Jaylen McManus also added nine points for the Cougars off the bench.

HIGHLIGHTS
Charleston led or tied for the opening six minutes of the contest until Wooten’s second three-pointer of the night gave the Phoenix its first lead 10-9 at the 13:53 mark. The Cougars answered with a 7-0 run, Seibring’s triple at 12:29 cut into the CofC lead 16-13.

After two free throws from Seibring at the 8:58 mark cut Charleston’s lead to 19-17, the Cougars mounted a 7-0 run to extend its advantage to 26-17 with 7:32 on the clock. CofC took as much as an 11-point lead twice in the final three minutes of the opening half, but Simon Wright’s triple with 35 seconds on the clock trimmed the Cougars’ lead to 39-31 at halftime.

At the start of the second half, Charleston used a pivotal 11-0 run in the opening two minutes. That surge would extend to 13-2 after Brevin Galloway drained a jumper to answer Wooten at the 17-minute mark to give the Cougars a 53-33 advantage, CofC’s largest lead of the contest.

The Phoenix would begin to chip away at the deficit cutting Charleston’s lead to as little as nine at 63-54 when Pack hit a triple at the 9:57 mark. Although the Cougars pushed back out to a 14-point lead in just over a minute, a 7-0 run after Elon cut the Charleston lead to 70-63 after Eberhardt’s layup with 5:47 remaining.

However, College of Charleston used an 8-0 spurt to take a commanding 78-63 lead with just 3:50 on the clock. Even though the Phoenix continued to hang tough and slice the deficit to eight with 28 seconds remaining, the Cougars held on in the final seconds to take the 84-74 victory.

NOTES
– Tyler Seibring moved into 6th on the program’s all-time scoring list after tallying 24 against the Cougars. He now has 1,746 career-points and is 53 points away from entering the top-5 on the program’s all-time scoring chart.
– With his four three-pointers, Seibring now ranks 2nd all-time in program history with 266 makes, surpassing 264 triples by Jack Isenbarger ’14.

UP NEXT
The Phoenix concludes the regular season with a two-game road swing, beginning with James Madison on Thursday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. Elon will then play its regular season finale on Saturday, March 2, at Towson for a 2 p.m. tip.