A second-half scoring drought proved costly as the High Point men's basketball team came up just short in a 73-69 loss at Big South Conference leader Birmingham-Southern on Saturday night in Bill Battle Coliseum.
High Point drops to 12-10 overall and 5-7 in the Big South Conference after suffering their third consecutive loss. Birmingham-Southern retains a share of the league lead at 17-6 overall, 10-2 in the Big South with the win. They also remained perfect at home at 10-0 and gave 17th-year head coach Duane Reboul his 400th career victory.
Mike Jefferson and Akeem Scott both finished with 16 points to pace four HPU players in double digits. Arizona Reid had 12 points and a team-leading six rebounds and Justin Dunn chipped in 11. High Point shot 53.3 percent from the floor for the contest and also out-rebounded BSC, 25-22.
"We came out and played a great first half," said HPU head coach Bart Lundy. "But, give them credit that they came out and were very aggressive to start the second half and put us on our heels. I was proud of how we continued to battle late in the game and not give-up because this game could have gotten out of hand. We set a goal at the start of the year to be playing our best basketball at the end of February and I think that tonight we started to play with the necessary effort to accomplish that goal."
The first half was a back-and-forth affair featuring four ties and 16 lead changes. Neither team led by more than a basket until Scott hit a jumper and Bowen drilled a three-pointer in the closing minute of the first period to give HPU a 35-30 advantage at the break.
Seven different High Point players scored in the opening 20 minutes as HPU connected on 56.5 percent (13 of 23) from the field. High Point also won the battle of the boards doubling up BSC, 16-8, in the first period.
Birmingham-Southern raced out of the blocks at the start of the second half using an 8-0 run over the first four minutes to grab a 38-35 edge. The Black & Gold Panthers maintained a lead until back-to-back buckets by Arizona Reid allowed HPU to knot the score at 49 with just over eight minutes remaining.
After rallying to even the score, High Point's offense struggled going scoreless for nearly seven minutes as BSC surged back in front on the strength of a 16-0 run. Mike Jefferson drilled a trey with 2:49 left to end the Birmingham spurt. HPU attempted a late charge with Bowen and Jefferson combining for three consecutive three-pointers to close the gap to just four-points at the closing buzzer.
James Collins scored a game-high 21 points to lead Birmingham-Southern with Thomas Viglianco adding 12 and Ed Horton scoring 10. BSC finished the game connecting on 51.2 percent from the floor including 10 three-pointers.
Up next for High Point is a rematch against VMI on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Millis Athletic Center. The VMI game opens a stretch of five games in 10 days to close the regular season for HPU.
