Cleveland Reporter

The Murphy Gymnasium has hosted some very close basketball games this season and Wednesday evening was no different. Notre Dame College scored 44 points in the second half and stretched a lead out to eight points, but No. 17 ranked West Virginia State University would hold on to win, 88-82.

The Falcons were looking for the long-range shot, early in the contest. In the first three and-a-half minutes of the game, NDC took four 3-pointers, with senior Jaedon Willis connecting on one. Willis would score the Falcons' first six points and finished the first half with 11.

Sophomore Andre Harris then got into the action, scoring four consecutive points for NDC, and blocking a shot on the defensive end. That would be the beginning of a 9-2 run, which put the Falcons ahead by seven points, 15-8, after Tyland Crawford hit a three pointer with 12:21 on the clock.

Notre Dame held that lead until the 7:49-mark in the first half. At that point, West Virginia State tied the contest at 25 with a layup and then took the lead on a three by Ibn Loyal.

Going back to the well, sophomores Kaleb Torrence and DeAirius Barker knocked down back-to-back threes to put NDC on top. After another WVSU miss, Barker took the ball to the hoop for a layup. Notre Dame led 33-28, with 5:40 on the clock.

Barker finished the first half with 13 points, on 5-of-7 shooting.

West Virginia State went on an 8-0 run, but the Falcons responded. Trailing by three points with less than a minute to go, Willis knocked down his second 3-pointer of the half to tie the game at 38, heading into halftime.

At the break, Harris had already grabbed 10 rebounds. He finished with 17, which is a career-high and the most rebounds in a game by an NDC player since Will Vorhees pulled down 20 on Feb. 7, 2019. On top of that, he ended the game with 16 points.

"Andre's a guy who can play inside and out and I knew this would be a big rebounding game for him and he really stepped up," head coach Mark Richmond said. "If he didn't have the numbers that he did, this game would have been very different. He gave us a chance and got it off the glass. He's a guy that we're going to count on heavily."

Notre Dame continued to roll into the second half. The Falcons were getting second chance opportunities on two of their first three possessions. Harris grabbed an offensive rebound before making a layup and then sophomore Gbolahan Adio grabbed his own miss and connected on a layup.

The Falcons took a six-point lead after Willis was fouled behind the three-point line and made all three free throws. On the next possession, sophomore Jamarr Talbert Jr. knocked down a three.

Willis, who had 10 points in the first six minutes of the second stanza, would hit a pair of free throws to give Notre Dame an eight-point lead, 57-49, with 14:54 remaining in the contest. He made seven free throws throughout the second half and totaled 17 points in the final 20 minutes. Willis finishing the game with 28.

The Yellow Jackets started to shift the momentum with a dunk by Malik Whitaker on a fastbreak. NDC missed a couple shots and West Virginia State made back-to-back threes to tie the contest at 59. However, the Falcons continued to stay ahead of WVSU, scoring a couple buckets to go back up by four points.

"We made stops and were able to get into a rhythm there in the second half," Richmond mentioned. "We had a good stretch to open the second half and kind of let our guard down and made some mental mistakes. There was a four-minute stretch in the second half that was detrimental."

With 8:36 on the clock and NDC trailing by a couple points, Willis stepped up again with a three to give Notre Dame a 66-65 lead. But, W.Va. State responded with a three on the other end and never gave the lead back to the Falcons in the final eight minutes of the game.

Notre Dame will travel to the University of Charleston, on Jan. 14, for a matchup with the Golden Eagles at 4 p.m.

Original source can be found here.