It's Free Throws Galore: Lehigh Downs Cagers

Led by 25 second half points from the free throw line, the Lehigh men's basketball team defeated Harvard, 82-75, Monday night in front of 300 spectators at Briggs Athletic Center.

The loss dropped Harvard's record to 3-8 while Lehigh--one of three teams on Harvard's schedule (along with Penn and Duke) to make the NCAA tournament last year--moves to 7-4. The Crimson travels south this weekend for games at Penn and Princeton.

Lehigh was led Monday night by a pair of 24-point performances by starting guards Mike Androlewicz and Vernon Doswell. Together, the two hit on 20 of 22 free throw opportunities.

The entire Harvard team was 13-for-14 on the night from the charity stripe.

The free throw parade enabled the Engineers to overcome a dismal nine-for-28 (32 percent) shooting performance in the second half.

Although some of the 42-14 overall discrepancy in free throw attempts was due to intentional fouling by the Crimson late in the ballgame, part of the rest may be attributable to some officiating that can only be described as "weird."

Harvard Coach Pete Roby refused to blame the refs, however. "There may be a discrepancy in the numbers," Roby said after the game. "I'm not going to get into that in the press. If I have a complaint to make, I'll make it to the [referees'] supervisor.

"But that's not the reason we lost," Roby continued. "We did two things [wrong] tonight--we turned the ball over and we didn't box out [on the defensive boards]."

The Crimson committed 17 turnovers, three more than Lehigh was guilty of, but four fewer than it has averaged during the season.

Lehigh did hold a two rebound advantage on the offensive boards, 13-11.

But early in this contest, it looked as if Harvard would need more than a statistical advantage in offensive boards to grab a victory.

Namely--an anti-aircraft gun to halt the high-flying Engineer attack.

The visitors ran out to an early 16-6 lead that included a spectacular alley-oop from Androlewicz to forward Daren Queenan that brought all of the Lehigh supporters--and many Harvard fans--to their feet.

But after a Roby time-out, the Crimson fought back gamely, and pulled to within one point of the front-runners before settling for a 3-point halftime deficit.

A nine-four spurt to open the second half gave the Engineers an eight-point lead, but once again an emotional Harvard squad fought back.

A long-range jumper by freshman Neil Phillips gave the Crimson its only lead of the day, 56-54, with 12 minutes left in the game.

But although Harvard hung tough, Lehigh's free throw parade, combined with some sloppy Crimson play, ultimately proved fatal for the cagers.

Phillips led the cagers with a season-tying best of 20 points. Keith Webster added 16 and Fred Schernecker--who saw extensive action off the bench after starting center Bill Mohler fouled out--hit for 12 points and led the team in rebounds with eight.