The Chestnut Hill College Men's Basketball team rallied from an eight point deficit in the final minutes of regulation as they went on to beat Seton Hill University 97-93 in double overtime Saturday afternoon at Sorgenti Arena.
In winning the "Battle of the Griffins", Chestnut Hill improves to 4-6 on the season. Seton Hall, ranked #5 in this week's D2CSC Men's Basketball Atlantic Region Media Poll, falls to 9-3. The game was CHC's first double overtime game since February 2018 (an 80-75 loss at Felician). It is also Chestnut Hill's fifth straight overtime win dating back to the same date.
All five Chestnut Hill starters reached double figures for the Griffins with Alejandro Redondo Cybak leading all scorers with 23 points. Omari Salvi added 21 points while Neal Hill, IV Pettit and Noah Charles had 13 points apiece.  Hill added 17 rebounds and six assists, while Cybak grabbed ten boards. Charles had a game high seven assists while Pettit added five.
It was Salvi's three point shooting in the final minute that brought Chestnut Hill back into the game. SHU had gone up by eight points with 2:05 left, 73-65 and with neither team adding to their total over the next 80 seconds,  Chestnut Hill still trailed by eight with under a minute left. After a Seton Hill miss at the free throw line, Salvi sank the first of three three-point baskets in that final stretch to close the gap to five 73-68 with 38 ticks on the clock.  SHU made one of two from the line to go back up by six but Salvi wasn't finished. Taking a pass from Charles he sank another three-point basket with 25 seconds left to cut Seton Hill's lead to three, 74-71.  SHU's Ryan Meis (20 points) sank two free throws to again give the visitors a five point lead.   Salvi again got the ball and banked in a three-point basket and was fouled with 10.6 seconds left. He missed the free throw and the Shu rebounder was immediately fouled and subsequently missed both free throws. With CHC on offense, Pettit got the ball above the three point line as the clock was winding down, drove into the lane and launched floater which banked off the glass and in as the buzzer sounded, sending the game into overtime.
In the first overtime, Meis hit a three-pointer with four seconds left to force a second overtime with the score tied 84-84.  Seton Hill opened as two-point lead on two occasions I the second overtime, the last at 90-88 with 2:41 left.   Hill tied the scored at 90-90 with 2:11 left and Salvi hit the last of his five three point baskets with 1:29 left to give CHC a 93-90 lead. Chestnut Hill added four more free throws in the final 38 seconds to complete a 9-0 run and increase their lead to seven 97-90. Meis hit a long three-pointer with 0.7 on the clock to wrap up the scoring as Chestnut Hill held on for the win.
Chestnut Hill had led by 11 at the half, but SHU opened the second half with a 22-10 run to retake the lead 54-53 midway through the half. The two teams exchanged the lead five times over the next 4:30 before Seton Hill used an 11-2 run to take their eight point lead late in the period before Salvi's heroics brought CHC back into the game.
In the first half, Chestnut Hill used a 16-4 run in the first half to erase a one point deficit and take a double-digit lead 31-20 with 5:50 left, increasing it to as many as 14 before a Meis three-ball cut the margin to 11 at halftime, 43-32.
Meis' 20 points paced five Seton Hill players in double figures. Brian Belade added 17 while Gage Lattimore and Gabe Gillespie had 16 apiece. Edir Ortiz chipped in 11.
For the game, Seton Hill shot 54.7% (35-64) from the field including a 40% effort from beyond the arc (12-30). Chestnut Hill made 33-74 shots from the field (44.6%0 and was 11 of 29 from three-point range (37.9%). CHC outrebounded SHU 46-29 (17-4 on the offensive glass). Seton Hill committed two fewer turnovers (11-13).
The men's basketball team returns to action on Wednesday, December 18, 2024 when they travel to face the University of the District of Columbia.
