Prasse-Freeman Nets Last-Second Win for Crimson

With only six seconds left and the score knotted at 62 in Saturday’s game at Lehigh, junior guard Elliott Prasse-Freeman heaved a shot in an attempt to steal the men’s basketball team a win in what had been a back-and-forth battle.

Prasse-Freeman’s drained the shot, giving the Crimson (2-1) a 64-62 win over the winless Mountain Hawks (0-3) at Stabler Arena.

“I honestly didn’t think the shot was going to go in,” Prasse-Freeman said. “I expected to get fouled when I just threw the ball up in the air, but it actually ended up going in. It was great.”

The Crimson enjoyed a balanced scoring attack, with three players scoring in double figures. Junior guard Patrick Harvey led the Crimson with a game-high 21 points, and senior center Tim Coleman tacked on 15 points and eight rebounds. Prasse-Freeman added 14 points, 12 of which game from beyind the three-point line.

“What’s amazing is that everyone who was on the court at the end of the game made big plays to help us win,” Coleman said. “We were all working hard until the end, playing hard every minute of the game, so you could never really guess what was going to happen.”

Alex Jensen led the Mountain Hawks with 15 points.

Prasse-Freeman’s game-winning shot ended a long tug-of-war between the two teams.

The Mountain Hawks took a 59-52 lead with only 2:01 left on the game clock. A basket by Harvey and a three-pointer by Coleman sliced the Lehigh lead to 59-57, forcing the Mountain Hawks to take a timeout with a little over a minute remaining in the game.

Lehigh’s Eric Heil and Prasse-Freeman exchanged goals after the timeout, which allowed the Mountain Hawks to keep a two-point lead over the Crimson. A Lehigh turnover, followed by a jumpshot by senior guard Andrew Gellert, tied the game at 62.

Gellert then stole an inbounds pass and dished it off to Prasse-Freeman for a last-second layup.

Prasse-Freeman’s game-winner sealed the come-from-behind victory for the Crimson.

“I was getting ready to go into overtime,” Coleman said. “A few minutes before, we had been down eight points, and all of a sudden, Drew had stolen the ball, and Elliott was going for the layup. It was amazing.”

“We just kept working hard and plugging away and did the right thing in the end,” Prasse-Freeman added. “We didn’t do it perfectly for the whole game, but we executed well.”

Lehigh’s lack of execution and precision allowed the game to slip out of its hands.

Although the Mountain Hawks were able to outrebound the Crimson, 35-33, Lehigh shot a dismal 39 percent from the floor and had only one player to score in double figures.

The Crimson will face Northeastern tomorrow night at Lavietes Pavilion.

“Northeastern should be a lot of fun

for us—a lot of running, action between the two of us,” Prasse-Freeman said.

Tipoff is at 7 p.m.