ATHENS, W.Va. – The Concord University men's basketball team's late rally came up short as it fell to nationally-ranked Fairmont State 82-80 Saturday afternoon in a Mountain East Conference game at the Carter Center.
Down 10 points, 79-69, with 2:24 remaining, CU (10-11, 8-8 MEC) began its comeback with five straight points from fifth-year senior guard
Matt Weir to cut the advantage in half at the 1:53 mark.
Fairmont State (18-3, 13-3 MEC) and Concord traded dunks on either end as sophomore guard
Jordan Wooden drove down the left baseline and finished off a slam to get the deficit back to five points with 1:08 remaining.
After Weir cashed in on two free throws with 34 seconds remaining, Fairmont State missed the front-end of a one-and-one leaving the door open for the Mountain Lions. Freshman forward
Amare Smith came up with an offensive putback with 17 seconds left. FSU got 1-of-2 free throws to drop to push the advantage to 82-80.
Weir's three-pointer from the right win with two seconds remaining fell half way through the goal before popping out as CU fell short.
Concord got down 21-14 over the first 7:18 of the game, but ripped off a 27-7 run over the course of the next 7:03 of the first half. Five three-pointer highlighted the spurt as junior guard
Ethan Heller and senior guard
Brandon Kennedy each had two triples.
The Mountain Lions used the surge to take a 46-39 lead at halftime.
FSU rallied to grab a 52-51 edge at the 14:47 mark of the second half as the teams went score for score over the next seven minutes before the Fighting Falcons opened up an eight-point margin, 66-58, with 7:24 remaining.
Led by the parade of three-pointers in the first half—eight connections from three-point range—Concord made 13 triples in the game, shooting 38.2 percent.
With his late burst, Weir finished with 16 points and five assists while not turning the ball over. Smith tallied 13 points and seven rebounds. Heller and fifth-year senior forward Daniel Rahama came off the bench to supply double figures. Rahama netted 12 while Heller added 10 points.
Kennedy (nine points), junior forward
Jevon Laidler (eight points) and Wooden (eight points) all just missed double figures. The Mountain Lions had a 32-25 rebounding advantage in the game.
CU returns to the road when its visits Wheeling 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
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