AMHERST — The Amherst College men’s basketball team pulled through with a 71-70 win over Bowdoin in the quarterfinals of the NESCAC Tournament, Saturday at LeFrak Gymnasium.
Trailing 70-69, sophomore forward Josh Chery took a pass out high, drove to the hoop and laid it in through traffic, giving the Mammoths a 71-70 lead with 3 seconds remaining.
Bowdoin junior Jack Simonds threw up a prayer in the Polar Bears’ last possession but it didn’t fall, as the No. 1 seed Amherst escaped against the No. 8 Polar Bears.
“The one thing Josh is, is tenacious,” Mammoths coach David Hixon. “He got a great rebound earlier. He’s a really strong, aggressive kid and that’s why we put him in there. He goes to the basket well and I would’ve taken anybody making it.”
Chery finished with 11 points, shooting 5-for-10 from the field.
“This is NESCAC basketball,” Chery said. “Literally anyone can win on any given night so we were expecting a dog fight and we got one.”
Amherst senior Johnny McCarthy came away with a team-high 22 points and made a couple of deep 3-pointers late to give the Mammoths life after a falling behind early in the second half.
McCarthy hit a floater at the buzzer before halftime to put Amherst up 37-36, but Bowdoin scored 10 straight points out of the intermission to lead 46-37.
Hixon called a timeout to refocus his team.
“The second half of the first half we got better, we started scoring, we started to look better,” Hixon said. “Then to come back out like that, I don’t know what the hell I’m saying to put them asleep (in the locker room) but whatever it was we went right back to playing lousy again.”
It took some time for Amherst’s shots to fall in the first half while Simonds carried the Polar Bears, scoring 21 of his 25 points in the first half.
“We came out so lackadaisical,” Chery said. “We’re down 10 at one point but we stuck to what makes us win so I think we just stayed with them and then pulled away.”
The Mammoths (17-8) earned a semifinal matchup next Sunday against Wesleyan.
“I think we’re right on the cusp now of going to the NCAA’s, whether we win or lose,” Hixon said. “We’d like to play Wesleyan again anyway and I think we think we could’ve beaten them the first time here so I’m looking forward to it.”
