PHOTO GALLERY

The Saint Vincent men's basketball team hosted the Thiel College Tomcats in a Presidents' Athletic Conference matchup. The Bearcats fell to the visitors, 78-73 and dropped their sixth game in a row. SVC falls to 9-11 on the season with a PAC record of 4-7 while Thiel improves to 6-11 and 5-5 in the conference.

Both teams opened the game by going scoreless for the first 2:21 until the Tomcats broke the tie. Shemar Bennett evened the score at two as he went 2-2 from the charity stripe. Walter Bonds followed it with a jumper from 16 feet to give the Bearcats the lead. Thiel tied the game but an old fashion three-point play from Drew Normandin at 16:34 mark gave SVC a 7-4 lead.

The Tomcats pulled within one but two free throws from David Stephen extended the lead back to three. Thiel scored the next five points to regain the lead, 11-9. Josh Duda tied the game with a 18-foot jump shot but shortly after the visitors scored four-consecutive points to recapture the lead. Andrew Reed then hit the first three of the game to cut the Saint Vincent deficit to a single point.

This pattern continued until Thiel hit threes on back-to-back possessions to lead 25-19 with 6:48 to go in the half. The Tomcats eventually worked to grow their lead to 10 (34-24) that forced a Bearcat timeout with 2:44 to go. Out of the break, Normandin made a layup in the lane followed by a couple layups from Cletus Helton. In total, Saint Vincent went on a 9-0 run to trail 34-33 as the clock read 27 seconds. With seven seconds to go, Thiel made a layup to lead 36-33 going into halftime.

The visitors extneded its lead to five coming out of the locker rooms but a three from Tom Neugebauer and then a layup by Bonds tied the game at 38. The Tomcats went ahead with a layup but another three from Reed gave SVC a 41-40 edge with 16:57 on the clock. Over the next two minutes, Thiel went on a 9-0 run to lead 49-41. The Bearcats cut the deficit to seven but the Tomcats went up by 11 (55-44) at the 12:35 mark. 

Saint Vincent then went on an 8-2 run to pull within five points but Thiel responded with a 9-2 stretch to grab its largest lead of the night (12). SVC slowly chipped away at the lead with four points from Helton and Normandin each as the Bearcats trailed 68-64 at the 6:20 mark. 

The Tomcats grew their lead back to nine (77-68) with 3:46 remaining in regulation. Bennett hit a layup followed by Stephen, who made a scoop shot off the backboard. Bennett then hit a free throw to cut the lead to four but Thiel answered with a free throw with 15 seconds on the clock to win by five.

Bennett led SVC with 14 points while grabbing 10 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the year. Both Normandin and Helton finished the evening with 12 points. 

Saint Vincent takes the next six days off until it hosts Westminster College on Senior Day on Saturday, Feb. 8. Start time is 6 p.m.