NEW ORLEANS, La. – Coming into Thursday night's SSAC matchup, Blue Mountain Christian Men hadn't defeated Loyola since January 12, 2019, but the Toppers changed that with a trio of free-throws with one second left in the game by
Keevin Etienne to take a 63-62 win.
It was a heartstopper on the campus of Loyola, as the game went back and forth late.
Loyola would storm out to a quick lead behind consecutive buckets seven straight points from Braelee Albert.
The Wolf Pack would gain its biggest lead of the half at 19-10 on a jumper from Julian Baldwin.
Blue Mountain would start to put things together and get it back to 23-21 on a layup from
Trae Jones.
With 1:26 left in the first,
Manny Patrick drained a three to make it 29-26 Loyola at the break.
Jones would lead the Toppers with eight at the half while Albert led Loyola with nine.
In the second half, the Wolfpack would surrender the lead at 3:58 to the Toppers, as
Naysean Clemente scored to give Blue Mountain a 52-51 lead, the first of the game.
The Wolfpack regained the lead at 2:52, but
Vincent Douglas would come right back down the court for BMCU and nail a three to give Blue Mountain a 55-54 lead.
Clemente struck again with a three with 52 seconds left, giving Blue Mountain a 60-59 lead.
The Wolf Pack would tie it with just 21 seconds to go when Milan Mejia would get an offensive rebound and stick it back in.
Coming out of a timeout, Blue Mountain would get off a shot with six second left from Douglas, but he would miss
Loyola's Julian Baldwin would be fouled on the rebound, hit 1-of-2 from the line and immediately after, teammate Zachary Lee fouled BMCU's Clemente while he was shooting a three with just a second left to go.
Clemente would be injured on the foul and leave the game, requiring Loyola to choose a shooter to go to the foul line for Blue Mountain, and they would choose Etienne.
Etienne would calmly drain all three free-throws to seal the game and give the Toppers the important conference victory.
"It was a wild game, and I'm thankful we came out on top," BMCU head coach
Jermael Bingham said. "We got off to a slow start, but our guys really wanted this game. We're fighting for our postseason lives right now, so they knew we had to have it."
Etienne would finish with 16 points to lead the Toppers, while Douglas and Jones each had 11 points. Patrick would chip in 10 points and nine rebounds, also.
There's a three-way tie for the 10
th spot in the conference, with the Toppers in the midst of it, needing to win one, possibly two, of its next three to make the SSAC Tournament.
BMCU (11-14, 5-12 SSAC) will travel to Hattiesburg, Miss. Saturday to take on state rival William Carey with tip set for 2 p.m. CT.
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