High Point rallied from a disastrous beginning to storm back and take the lead midway through the second half, but host Charleston Southern was too tough down the stretch and held off the Panthers, 61-56, Saturday afternoon in Big South men's basketball action in Charleston.

The loss drops the Panthers to 6-15, 2-8 in league play. CSU improves to 12-9 (6-2).

HPU seemed to suffer early from the absence of Joe Knight (who sat out the game with a deep leg bruise suffered Wednesday against UNC Asheville) as the Buccaneers dominated play at both ends and scored 17 straight points to take a 19-3 lead. But the Panthers recovered and behind Ron Barrow and Brent Halsch (who before the half scored 11 and nine points off the bench, respectively) to take a 31-30 lead before Kevin Warzynski made a pair of free throws to give the Bucs a 32-31 advantage at intermission.

A nip-and-tuck second half ensued, with HPU taking a 43-42 advantage with 12:15 to go on one of Halsch's five three-pointers. The Bucs woud re-take the lead and stretch it to as many as eight points before the Panthers cut it to 56-55 on a Dustin Van Weerdhuizen tip-in with 3:39 to play.

CSU's Thomas Harrison grabbed a huge offensive board and put the Bucs up three at 59-56 with 1:21 to go, and after a stop on the other end, CSU inbounded the ball with one second on the shot clock and 16.8 seconds left to Warzynski, who broke free for an uncontested layup which completed the scoring.

Warzynski led all scorers with 22 points. Gathings led all scorers with 16 points, while Halsch tied his career-high with 15 points and Barrow added a season-best 13 points.

The Panthers stay on the coast for a Monday night contest against Coastal Carolina (7:00 pm EST).