Men's Basketball Falls to New Jersey City in Season Opener

LANCASTER, Pa. -- The Bridgewater State University men's basketball team opened the season with an 85-84 setback to New Jersey City University at the Lancaster Rotary Tip-Off Tournament hosted by Franklin and Marshall College.

Justin Clark (Yarmouth Port, Mass.) paced the Bears with 22 points, seven rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals.

Kyle Gibson (Franklin, Mass.) and Tyler DeMelo (East Freetown, Mass.) added 14 points apiece, while Barrett Murphy (Marshfield, Mass.) chipped in with ten. Gibson also grabbed five rebounds and blocked three shots

The Bears trailed by as many as 17 points in the second half but rallied with a 14-3 run over the last seven minutes to close the gap.  Trailing 81-77 with just 20 seconds remaining, Murphy drained a three-pointer to pull the Bears to within one.

After a foul, David Cole converted both free throws for the Gothic Knights to push the advantage back up to three (83-80) with 17 seconds left on the clock.

Clark drained a pair of free throws at the other end of the floor to cut the deficit back to one (83-82), but Jourdan Robinson answered with a pair of free throws for the Gothic Knights to make it a three-point game, 85-82, with ten seconds remaining.

The Bears were unable to get a three-pointer off in the closing seconds and had to settle for a Fawaz Mass (Taunton, Mass.) layup with just one second left as New Jersey City hung on for the win.

Cole scored a team-high 17 points, shooting 5-of-8 from the field, 3-of-5 from three-point distance and 4-for-4 from the line.

Bridgewater shot 43% (21-49) from the floor and just 69.6% (32-46) at the line.  The  Bears missed 14 free throws in the game including eight in the second half when they made 32 trips to the charity stripe. 

Bridgewater will take on Washington and Jefferson in the consolation game on Sunday afternoon at one.