Muhlenberg win ends Fords' title hopes

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – In the end it came down to the final shot but with one last miss, Haverford’s season came to an end on Wednesday night in a 52-50 loss to host Muhlenberg College at Memorial Hall in the Centennial Conference postseason quarterfinal tournament game.

Haverford (12-13, 9-9) opened the game 0-for-10 from the field but by the time they picked up their first points off a pair of Ben McDowell free throws and their first basket on an Alex Schwada layup, they trailed Muhlenberg (17-10, 11-7) by only a 13-4 score at the 12:11 mark. For a team that earlier in the season had come back from 17 down in a victory against Dickinson College, the early nine-point deficit wasn’t a mountain that Haverford hadn’t climbed before.

The Fords put up a 6-0 run to cut the lead to five but the host Mules answered back with a 7-0 run of their own to take a 20-8 lead with 8:57 to play in the half.

Over the next 11 minutes, though, Haverford picked up the scoring pace while also finding an answer on the defensive end of the floor.

When Ian Goldberg sank a fall-away six-foot jumper after Schwada had pulled the Fords within two with a trey, Haverford had completed their first half rally, sending the teams into the halftime locker rooms knotted at 24-24.

Both teams had the lead for extended periods during the second 20 minutes, each pulling out to five point leads at some point within the half, but a pair of Mules free throws by Spencer Liddic tied things up at 50-50 with 3:29 to play.

The problem that plagued the Fords at the beginning of the game reared its head again at the end, though, as Haverford missed each of three shots while Muhlenberg’s Mike Bernardini sank a pair of free throws to put his team up 52-50.

Still, the Fords had one last shot after Doug Edelman pulled down a rebound off a missed Mules shot with 21 seconds left.

Following a timeout the Fords tried to work the ball for an open look but Goldberg’s shot from within double-coverage was off the mark and Edelman’s last second shot failed to fall as well, sending the Mules on to a semifinal match-up with top seed Franklin & Marshall while the Fords and their six seniors closed out their season with a valient effort.

Goldberg finished with a team-high 11 points for the Fords while Brent Anderson added 10, plus six rebounds.

The Mules were led by Liddic’s 14 points and eight rebounds.

For the game Haverford rallied back to shoot 34 percent from the field and held Muhlenberg to just 29 percent. But the Mules out rebounded the Fords by a 40-31 margin and hit 17-of-18 from the foul line to hold off the Haverford rally in the end.