SWARTHMORE, PA - Swarthmore College shot sixty percent from the field, including 62.5% in the second half, to stun Franklin & Marshall College 79-48 in Centennial Conference men's basketball action at Tarble Pavilion.
The loss marks the first by Franklin & Marshall (7-8, 2-6 Centennial Conference) to Swarthmore (3-12, 2-6 Centennial Conference) since a 74-73 defeat on February 3, 1975 in Swarthmore, as the Diplomats had won 30 straight over the Garnet Tide.
Swarthmore never trailed in the game as Steve Wolf, Noam Fliegelman and Ian McCormick made lay-ups as the Garnet ran out to a 6-0 lead with 17:55 left in the first half. F&M rallied to cut the lead down to two points at 10-8, 12-10 and 14-12, but Wolf drained a three-pointer at the 10:29 mark to start a 7-2 run by Swarthmore to take a 21-14 lead with 9:14 left in the half.
F&M trimmed the lead back to three points with back-to-back lay-ups by forwards Bryan Teschke (Jr., Pittsburgh, PA/Fox Chapel) and Brandon Yost (So., McDaniel, MD/St. Michael's), but Chris Casey made a lay-up and Mike Rohde added a pair of buckets for a 6-0 run to go ahead 27-18 with 4:06 left in the first half.
The Garnet closed out the half by outscoring F&M 11-6 over the final four minutes of play to take a 38-24 lead into halftime.
Teschke made a jumper to open the second half and trim the margin to 12 points, but Swarthmore outscored F&M 13-4 over the next four minutes to go in front 51-30 as the Garnet held a 41-24 scoring advantage in the second half to take the win.
For Swarthmore, Wolf led the way scoring 21 points and pulling down seven rebounds in 28 minutes to lead all scorers. McCormick, Dillon McGrew and Jon Tundel each added 10 points for the Garnet.
The keys to the game were Swarthmore's shooting and rebounding as the Garnet held a 34-24 advantage on the boards, including a 27-16 margin on the defensive glass.
Brandon Smith (Sr., Reading, PA/Governor Mifflin) scored 11 points and pulled down seven rebounds to lead the Diplomats, while Teschke and guard Logan Outerbridge (Jr., Glen Rock) added eight and six points, respectively.
Historically, Smith raised his career totals to 1,381 points, 601 rebounds, 249 assists, 62 blocks and 187 steals as he moved within 32 points of surpassing Jackiem Wright '05 for seventh on the career scoring list at the College.
The loss marks the fifth straight for F&M as it marks the first time the Diplomats have dropped five games in a row since the 1997-98 team fell to Alvernia (86-76 L), RPI (89-87 L), Dickinson (93-89 L), McDaniel (74-68 L) and Lebanon Valley (81-69 L) between January 4-19.
Franklin & Marshall will continue the season on January 18 at Johns Hopkins University in Centennial Conference action. Game time is set for 7:30 p.m.
