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`The Marauders once again came up short losing 76-68 in the last game of the season against Mansfield Saturday afternoon. The loss ends Millersville’s season with a record of 8-19 overall and only 3-11 in conference play. The team also ends the season losing four straight games as well as a dismal 1-9 in their last ten games.
Despite the disappointing ending to their season, senior Jason Blake made sure to end his career at Millersville with a bang. Blake scored a career high of 23 points in Saturday’s game. He also added seven rebounds to his game totals.
The Marauders got out to a slow start and faced a nine point deficit early in the game with 13:01 on the clock. Mansfield continued to rally against the struggling Marauders, stretching their lead to double digits with 7:27 remaining the in the first half.
Mansfield was able to hold on to their lead over Millersville for the remainder of the first half, even seeing a 15 point lead before Millersville’s Alen Ahmetovic made a lay-up with one second left in the first half, cutting the Mansfield lead to 13.
As the two teams got under way for the second half, Mansfield was able to keep a hold of their lead until senior Palmer McDurfee made a lay up with 14:22 left in the game, which started a 12-3 run for the Marauders. During the run Blake added a key three point shot to help bring the motivation in favor of the home team.
With 11:03 remaining on the clock Millersville was able to cut the Mansfield lead down to only three points. However, Mansfield was able to expand on their slim lead going up by as much as 15 points with only 3:55 left in the game.
Millersville made a strong run with only a few minutes left in their season, making another impressive run scoring eight unanswered points. The run cut their deficit down to seven with a score of 69-62 with 1:43 remaining in the game.
Although the Marauders made a valiant attempt to close the gap further, Mansfield proved too strong to stop. The Marauders came within five points with 52 seconds remaining in the game, on a lay-up by McDurfee, but Mansfield held on and finished the game up by eight points with a final score of 76-68.
Blake led the scoring with 23 points. Sophomore Mike Seibert also added 13 and Ahmetovic added 10 points.
With the win Mansfield was able grab the number one seed in the PSAC tournament in the Eastern Division. Millersville failed to make a playoff bid this season. In Fred Thompson’s 12 seasons as the head coach for Millersville, the team only missed the playoffs five times. This is also the second straight losing season for the Marauders.
The team has a lot of work in the off season, but the team will have some key players back next season including Seibert who has proved a vital member of the team this season.