Men’s basketball rallies, but comes up short at Birmingham-Southern

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Huntingdon men's basketball team rallied from a 15-point deficit in the second half but lost to Birmingham-Southern 86-74 on Thursday night.

The Hawks (0-2) trailed 53-38 less than three minutes into the second half, but pulled within a point of the Panthers (3-0) twice in the final nine minutes. A Charlie Johnson field goal capped a 26-12 run and made it a 65-64 game with 8:01 to play and a pair of Jerome Davis free throws made it 67-66 with 7:03 left.

But that was as close as Huntingdon could get. Birmingham-Southern pulled back ahead with a 19-4 run and closed out the game.

"We played hard and we cut it to a point twice, but we could not finish. Birmingham-Southern has a very good team," Huntingdon head coach Mike Pugh said. "We did some good things but we still have a lot of work to do."

Alex Layson led Huntingdon with 15 points and Andre Ashley and Dantavius Washington each had 10 points. Ashley also had six rebounds and four assists. Davis added eight points and five assists and Johnson pulled down a team-high eight rebounds.

Huntingdon hosts Berry College on Saturday at 3 p.m.