RICHMOND, Indiana – For its second straight outing, Earlham College men's basketball rallied to force overtime but couldn't come out ahead in the extra session, this time falling to visiting Manchester University, 68-64, in a Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference matchup on Saturday afternoon at the Druley Performance Gym.

THE BASICS

Final Score:  Manchester 68, Earlham 64 (OT)
Location: Richmond, Indiana – Druley Performance Gym
Records: Earlham 5-8, 1-4 HCAC / Manchester 5-8, 3-3 HCAC

THE SHORT STORY

Thomas Sanborn's 3-pointer with 13 seconds remaining tied the game up at 55-55, completing Earlham's effort to erase a five-point Manchester advantage over the final two minutes of play. A pair of Jamel Barnes Jr. free throws at the 1:54 mark helped cut the margin to 55-52, setting the stage for Sanborn's trey to force the OT session.

Manchester took the lead at the 4:14 mark of the overtime period, 57-55, on Cortiz Buckner's layup, and held off Earlham's counterattacks the rest of the way. The Quakers twice cut the margin to two points, both times as the result of scoring from Barnes, but could not find the go-ahead points. Earlham's final rally came in the waning seconds when Barnes converted a layup with 15 seconds remaining, but Matthew Westman answered at the other end of the floor for Manchester to preserve the Spartan win.

Earlham had led by as many as eight points earlier in the second half, after leading Manchester over the entire first half.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

Chainey Zolman charted his fourth 20-point performance of the season with exactly 20 points versus Manchester on 6-of-14 shooting from the floor with three 3-pointers and a 5-for-5 effort at the line.

Barnes recorded a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds and completed his stat line with five assists, a steal, and a block.

Blake Bonin rounded out the double-digit scorers with 10 points to go with a team-high six assists.

Earlham finished the game with a .351 shooting percentage, but that was far from a balanced shooting performance; the Quakers opened the game on a 6-of-7 shooting tear and jumped out to a 10-point lead, 17-7, over the first five minutes of the game, and finished the half shooting 48.0 percent (12-of-25).

In the second half, the Quakers' shooting percentage tumbled to 26.1 percent (6-of-23) and slipped to 2-of-9 (.222 FG pct.) in the overtime period.

Manchester shot 45.4 percent (25-of-55) from the floor, including a 5-of-8 clip in the OT.

WHAT'S NEXT

Earlham men's basketball continues HCAC play on Wednesday, Jan. 15 when it hosts Bluffton University. Tip-off is slated for 7:30 p.m.