Just moments after the Kansas Wesleyan Men's Basketball team had tied things up with 10.3 seconds left on Izaiah Hale's bucket, Friends' KJ Spiller hit an 18-foot jumper with 2.2 seconds left to give the Falcons an 82-80 win over the Coyotes on Saturday night at Mabee Arena.
Alex Littlejohn also became the all-time rebounding leader in school history on Saturday night, breaking a 75-year-old record previously held by Charles Fiffe. Littlejohn's rebound with 14:01 left in the game was the record breaking moment.
Wesleyan had to battle back from a 46-39 deficit to start the second half as Littlejohn's bucket with 16:21 left drew the Coyotes within a point at 48-47. Friends pushed the lead back out to five before Carson Jones hit a 3-pointer with 13:34 left to draw the Coyotes back within two again.
Another triple by Jones put Wesleyan up for the first time since leading 2-1 to start the game at 58-57 with 12:31 left.
Friends led by three at 66-63 when Easton Hunter buried a 3-pointer to tie things up. Friends responded with a 7-0 run over four and a half minutes to take a 73-66 lead with 5:25 to go.
Wesleyan had a response for that, using its own 7-0 run to tie things at 73 with 3:24 left.
The Falcons took an 80-75 lead with 1:15 to go, but five straight points all by Hale knotted things up at 80 before the final shot.
Friends jumped out to an early 14-4 lead in the game but the Coyotes got back into it, cutting the lead to 21-16 with 10:56 left on a 3-pointer by Durrell Hudspeth.
The Falcons pushed the lead out to as many as 14 with 5:57 left in the first half at 37-23 before the Coyotes cut the difference to eight at the half 46-38.
Both teams shot the ball very well as Friends was 33 of 53 for 62.3 percent from the field and KWU was 28 of 53 for 52.8 percent. Friends also shot 13 of 22 from 3 -point range for 59.1 percent.
Littlejohn led the Coyotes with 22 points, while Hunter had 15 and Jones and Hudspeth had 14 each.