For the second straight season, the Lancaster Bible men's basketball team overcame a heartbreaking loss in the North Eastern Athletic Conference Final and regained it composure to win the NCCAA East Region Championship just days later. The Chargers defeated Valley Forge, 84-64 on Wednesday night at Horst Athletic Center and improved to 25-3 overall this season. 

The Chargers will enter the NCCAA National Tournament in Circleville, Ohio as the number two seed and will face the winner of the 7-seed vs. 10-seed game on Thursday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. The aforementioned 7-10 game will take place on Wednesday. After winning the East Region title last season, the Chargers took home a program-best third place finish at the national tournament. 

After struggling from the field in both the NEAC Semifinal and NEAC Final last weekend, Lancaster Bible shot lights out on Wednesday night as the Chargers' 63.6 percent (28-of-44) shooting percentage tied for the second-highest mark the team has posted this season. Lancaster Bible ran out of the gate quickly as the Chargers took a 14-4 lead just 5:49 into the game. 

Valley Forge closed the gap to four at 17-13 with 10:26 to play in the opening half thanks in large part to Jean LeBlanc who had 12 of the Patriots' first 15 points. Lancaster Bible continued to lead by seven or eight points for much of the half, but the Patriots made another run with three minutes to go and thanks to two made free throws from Thorne McIntosh, cut the deficit to five at 31-26 with 2:44 left in the half.

Lancaster Bible countered however and ended the half with a 7-0 run and took a 38-26 lead into the break. 



Out of the break, Valley Forge trimmed its deficit to eight on a layup from LeBlanc with 17:21 to play, but the Chargers would use a 15-4 run over the next five minutes to take a commanding lead, 54-35, with 12:19 to play. During the scoring run, four of Lancaster Bible's buckets came via the layup as the Chargers were able to fend off Valley Forge's pressure and get easy baskets.

"I thought we handled their defense well and were able to get some layups," Lancaster Bible Head Coach Marshall Tague said. "Valley had to gamble a bit more once we built a lead and we took advantage of that and got some more easy baskets in the second half."

Lancaster Bible shot an incredible 72.7 percent (16-of-22) as the Chargers poured it on and eventually took their biggest lead of the game at 78-52 with 4:09 to play thanks to a 3-pointer from senior Albert Suniga. Suniga led the Chargers with 19 points on 6-of-10 shooting, including 4-of-7 from beyond the arc. Fellow senior Naheer Mirza added 13 points and four assists, while senior Corey Leonard had nine points and six rebounds. Senior Dave Long chipped in with six points and five boards as he, the other three seniors mentioned above, and Jon Bird all played in the final home game of their career.

Junior Dondre Perry had 14 points, three boards and three steals, while fellow junior CJ Dunston finished with 11 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals. Dunston fell just two points short of hitting the 1,000-point mark for his career as he picked up his fifth foul with 6:48 remaining in the game. 

LeBlanc finished with a game-high 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting for Valley Forge.



The Lancaster Bible players and coaches celebrated the victory after the game, but it was done so with reserve as the Chargers are still hurting from their missed opportunity on Sunday in the NEAC Final against SUNY Cobleskill. Tague and the Chargers realize this cannot make up for Sunday's loss, but the team gets to keep playing for one more week and they are all happy about that.

"I'm happy the guys get to keep playing together," Tague said. "I'm especially happy for the seniors who will get to play three more games."

Tague said the team worked hard in practice on Tuesday and used the two days between the games to work through Sunday's loss and at the same time, prepare for Wednesday's game.

"We had a really good practice on Tuesday after a good meeting on Monday night," Tague said. "Credit out bench guys for getting the starters ready for tonight's game. The bench guys ran up and down for over an hour with the starters on Tuesday night and really prepared them for what Valley Forge was going to throw at us."

Despite not knowing who they will play until the day before, Tague said the team will lean on its experience from last season and be ready to go when they play on March 12.

"We have to take it one game at a time and prepare the best we can for each opponent," Tague said.

Notes:
-Lancaster Bible now has 397 wins in program history.

-Valley Forge still leads the all-time series with Lancaster Bible, 65-28.

-This is the fourth East Region title for Lancaster Bible. The Chargers also won in 2007, 2011 and 2014. All four of Lancaster Bible's titles have come with a win over Valley Forge.