Tritons Snuff Out Panthers Late Comeback

Jordan Majors - Photo credit: James Ragan Photography

Wednesday was what’s known as an Athletes Supporting Athletes night at the Clemente Center and the crowd showed up in a big way. Unfortunately, the FIT men fell short, losing to the Eckerd College Tritons, 92-87 at the Clemente Center.

“There’s no coach in the country that’s more appreciative of his student body than I was tonight,” said Panthers coach Billy Mims. “I wish we could’ve completed the comeback. It was a great game because of the crowd. The sixth man deserves a tremendous amount of credit.”

That crowd had a lot to cheer early, as three-pointers from Sam Daniel and Jordan Majors had the Panthers up 6-0, 50 seconds into the game. Robert Booth followed that with a dunk, before Trevon Young finally got the Tritons on the board with a jumper 2:33 into the contest.

Majors led the Panthers with 24 points and Daniel and Derek Murphy had 15. Patrick Anderson finished with 14, putting four Panthers in double figures.

The Panthers (11-10, 4-8 SSC) went up 12-4, but the Tritons chipped away and with a couple key threes by Travis Bianco, with 11:01 to go. About one minute earlier, Daniel who is the second leading scorer behind Majors in the Sunshine State Conference, picked up his second foul and spent the rest of the half on the bench.

“He’s the best three-point shooter on this team,” said Mims. “That was a big difference in the game. If Sam isn’t in foul trouble early, it might have been a different outcome. Two and a half minutes in we are eight up and he’s on the floor, two minutes later, he’s on the bench and that was a huge part of them having a five-point lead at the half.”

That lead was 45-40 for the Tritons at the break and they came out in the second half and built their lead to 16, with 12:10 to go, before Daniel buried a three to get the Panthers offense started again. The Tritons got it back to 10, 68-58 with 9:23 to go, but the Panthers kept chipping away.

A three by Anderson made it 68-61 and Murphy’s layup made it a five-point game. Kevin Walsh, who scored a game-high 25 points, helped the Tritons get their lead back to 11, 74-63, with 7:11 to go in the contest. They extended the lead to 14 with 6:19 left, before the FIT offense found another gear.

With Daniel back in the game and the Panthers down 80-68, they went on a 9-0 run, cutting the lead to 80-77. After a free-throw by the Tritons made it an 81-77 game, Michael Milligan drove to the basket and picked up the foul. He missed the free-throw, keeping the Tritons lead at 81-79.

“On three straight possessions down the stretch (after the missed free-throw), we drove to the basket and through traffic and a lot of contact and didn’t get the calls. To me, that’s the turning point of the game, because Eckerd had an 8-0 run and we don’t shoot a single free-throw in that run.”

To back up Mims’ point, the Panthers only shot 22 free-throws all night, making 18, while the Tritons (15-6, 8-4 SSC) went to the line 33 times (21 in the second half alone) and made 22 overall, 14 in the second half.

The Panthers won many of the intangibles, which Mims is always big on, points in the paint, points off turnovers and second chance points. Unfortunately, that late run by Eckerd made all of those stats insignificant, because it didn’t result in a Panthers win.

For more info: Eckerd @ Florida Tech Box Score

The Panthers will hit the road Saturday, as they take on Nova Southeastern in Fort Lauderdale at 4:00 p.m. This is a huge game for the Panthers, who need a conference win in the worst way.


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