CHESTER, Pa. – A late scoreless stretch doomed the Ursinus men's basketball team in their non-conference game against Widener as they fell 69-55 to the Pride on Thursday night.
With the loss, the Bears fall to 11-9 overall as they wrap up their non-conference portion of the schedule. Meanwhile, the Pride improved to 11-11 overall as the two teams made up their game that was originally schedule for Mid-December.
Freshman Sean Neylon led the Bears with a team-high 18 points behind making four three-pointers and grabbed three rebounds. Senior Ryan Hughes posted 11 points and five rebounds while senior Peyton Vostenak and sophomore Trevor Wall posted seven points apiece.
The Bears opened the game with back-to-back baskets to take the early 4-0 lead just over a minute into the contest. Ursinus continued to roll with early momentum as five-straight points following a Widener basket pushed the Ursinus lead to 9-2 at the 16:49-mark. With the Bears leading 14-8, the Pride made their first run of the game to take their initial lead at 15-14 with 12:40 remaining in the first half. The lead changed hands three times over the next few minutes before the Bears forged ahead by four points at 24-20 with 6:52 left in the first half. Widener reeled off six points after trailing 26-22 to go up 28-26 at the 1:59-mark and the Bears responded with four-straight points, seemingly set to take a lead into halftime. However, the Pride buried a three-pointer just before the buzzer and went up 31-30 at the half
Wall put the Bears back in front on their first possession of the second half before the Pride stormed back ahead with eight-straight points and took a 39-32 advantage at the 17:24-mark. Ursinus used an 8-2 run to pull within one point of the Pride at 41-40, but Widener responded with a 10-3 run to go up 51-43 at the 9:43-mark of the second half. Ursinus battled with a 12-5 run over the span of 3:49 and pulled back within one point at 56-55. However, the Pride closed the game out on a 13-0 run and held the Bears scoreless for the final 4:37 to preserve the win.
Ursinus shot just 33.9 percent (21-of-62) from the field and 26.7 percent (8-of-30) from three-point range. The Bears struggled from the free throw line as they made just five of 12 attempts (41.7%). Meanwhile, the Pride shot 40.7 percent (22-of-54) from the field and went 8-of-18 (44.4%) from three-point range. Widener went 17-of-25 (68%) from the free throw line and held a sizable 46-30 rebounding advantage.
Jared Peters spearheaded the Pride offense with a game-high 22 points behind going 6-of-9 from the field and a perfect 8-of-8 from the free throw line. Peters added five rebounds and four assists while Steven Matlack added 17 points behind going 4-of-7 from beyond the arc and grabbed seven rebounds.
The Bears return to action on Saturday, February 12th as they will host Washington College at 1 p.m. for senior day.