Huntingdon men come up short in battle with AUM

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Huntingdon men's basketball team rallied from a 17-point deficit in the first half, but couldn't complete the comeback against AUM on Monday night.

Leading by four points in the final 23 seconds, AUM sealed a 65-59 win by hitting 4-of-6 free throws to close the game.

"We struggled with our shooting tonight and AUM had a lot to do with that. AUM has a really good defensive team," Huntingdon head coach Mike Pugh said. "But I'm proud of the way we battled, especially late in the first half and the entire second half.

"At halftime, we talked about what we needed to do better and we came out and executed better in the second half. We were patient and we made a good run, but we couldn't catch them. We just got beat by a good team tonight."

Huntingdon (5-13) fell behind 28-11 in the first half before rallying and battling the Warhawks (9-9) the remainder of the game. Huntingdon used a 24-8 run during the final six minutes of the first half and the first three minutes of the second half to cut AUM's lead to 36-35 with 17:09 left in the game.

From there, neither team would lead by more than four points until AUM eased ahead in the final 23 seconds of the game.

An Austin Hill 3-pointer gave Huntingdon a 42-41 lead with 14:07 to play in the game. It was Huntingdon's only lead in the second half. The Hawks tied AUM three times in the final 11 minutes, but each time Huntingdon appeared poised to take the lead, AUM had an answer.

Hill led Huntingdon with 15 points and nine rebounds. Jeremiah Thomas finished with 11 points and nine rebounds and Jason Varney and Ryan Petty each scored 10 points.

Huntingdon travels to Pensacola Christian on Friday.