Beaver Falls, PA – After battling back and overcoming a 3-point deficit in the final 40 seconds of regulation to tie the game at 75-75, Geneva continued the momentum and took a 78-75 lead early in overtime.
However, sophomore Cameron Poszgai, who won the game for Westminster in overtime at Geneva last season, scored 10 overtime points and Westminster claimed the 124th win in the 212 game series.
“It was a good college game against a rival,” said Geneva coach Jeff Santarsiero. “We got caught up in the emotion a little bit and made some mistakes.
“We played well in spurts but when we were bad, we were really bad. We battled back, battled back, then made some mistakes. Give them credit, they made shots when they needed to.”
The game was worthy of the long rivalry as the score was tied 10 times and neither team ever led by more than eight points. Westminster had that eight-point lead with 3:53 left (73-65) but Geneva charged back to tie the game at 75-75 on a free throw by senior Tyler Damazo (Beaver Falls, PA/Blackhawk) with seven seconds left.
Geneva continued to benefit from the hot hand of junior Ethan Adamczyk (Uniontown, OH/Lake), who scored a season-high 27 points – the most by any Geneva player this season - and now has 101 in his last four games. Damazo finished with 15 points and junior Jordan Lawrence (Columbia, MD/Chapelgate) had 11.
Geneva finishes the regular season with a record of 10-15, 8-8 in Presidents’ Athletic Conference play and has earned 6th seed in PAC playoffs and will visit Bethany Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m.
“We have to turn it around quick,” Santarsiero said. “How we recover from this will determine how we play.”
Geneva College invites students to step forward and leap ahead with an academically excellent, Christ-centered and affordable education. Offering nearly 40 undergraduate majors, Adult Degree Programs with fully online and campus-based options, and high-demand advanced graduate degrees, Geneva's programs are recognized for their high quality. U.S. News & World Report ranks Geneva as a Top 10 Best Value with one of the Top 100 engineering programs in the nation. Adhering to the inerrancy of Scripture, a Geneva education is grounded in God’s word as well as in a core curriculum designed to prepare students vocationally to think, write and communicate well in today’s world.