The Lancaster Bible College team has preached all season about playing its best basketball at the right time and with the North Eastern Athletic Conference playoffs upon them, the team didn't respond perfectly for 40 minutes, but played well for large chunks of Tuesday night's NEAC Quarterfinal against Bryn Athyn and defeated the Lions, 78-69 at Horst Athletic Center. The victory sends the Chargers to the NEAC Semifinals for the fourth straight season where they will run into the upstart Wildcats from Cazenovia who upset NEAC North Division champion SUNY Polytechnic, 83-82 on Tuesday. Lancaster Bible's victory improves the team to 13-13 this season, while Bryn Athyn finished its year with a 10-16 mark.

How it Happened: Things looked good for the Chargers out of the gate as back-to-back 3-pointers from juniors Herbie Brown and Bill Livezey, coupled with another layup from Brown and a jumper from Austin Brown, gave Lancaster Bible a 10-2 lead 2:57 into the game. Bryn Athyn smartly called timeout and was a different team following the 30-second break as the Lions used a 14-2 run over the next four minutes to grab a 16-12 lead. Senior Deion Boyer capped the run with five points in what was a foreshadowing of his night to come.

The Chargers finally began to slow the Lions down, but Bryn Athyn put its foot on the gas again and took two separate seven-point leads later in the half, the second one at 35-28 on a 3-pointer by Stephan Tucker with 3:20 remaining in the half. Tucker's 3-pointer was the sixth of the half for Bryn Athyn and the Lions continued to crush Lancaster Bible from beyond the arc. A week ago, the Lions drained 18 3-pointers at Horst Athletic Center and then went 4-of-42 over two games in upstate New York.

Bryn Athyn pushed its lead to nine with 1:04 to play on a free throw from Boyer, but a jumper from Livezey and two free throws from Herbie Brown in the final second of the half, cut the Charges' deficit to 41-36 heading into halftime.

Boyer hit a 3-pointer 1:10 into the second half to give the Lions a 44-38 lead, but the Chargers took over from there and went on an 11-0 run to grab a 49-44 advantage. Sophomore Quentin Davis keyed the run as his thunderous dunk turned the game and sent the Chargers' bench and crowd into a frenzy. Off a missed layup, Davis soared above everyone and threw down one of the biggest dunks of the season to give Lancaster Bible a 47-44 lead. Forty seconds later, Davis stole the ball on the defensive end and went coast-to-coast for a layup that put the Chargers up five with 13:58 to play.

Lancaster Bible maintained its lead for the next several minutes, but another layup from Boyer with 6:42 to play, trimmed Lancaster Bible's lead to one, 61-60. The one-point lead was the same almost four minutes later, but freshman Brett Cataudella knocked down a jumper and Herbie Brown followed a possession later with a jumper of his own to give Lancaster Bible a 70-65 lead with 2:03 to play.

Bryn Athyn cut its deficit to three again, but Austin Brown hit two of his biggest shots of the season on the next two Lancaster Bible possessions and gave the Chargers a 76-69 lead with his third triple of the game. Freshman Luke Beers hit two free throws with under 20 seconds to play to seal the win for Lancaster Bible.

By the Numbers: Lancaster Bible shot 47.6 percent (30-of-63) from the field, including 9-of-22 from 3-point range...Bryn Athyn shot 44.4 percent (24-of-54) from the floor and was 9-of-24 from beyond the arc...Austin Brown and Herbie Brown each finished with 16 points for the Chargers...Cataudella had 14 points, eight rebounds and two assists...Sophomore Jason Kuntzelman was the fourth player in double figures with 10 points and he also had six boards and three assists...Davis finished with eight points and a game-high 14 rebounds, including seven on the offensive glass...Boyer finished with a game-high 28 points on 10-of-19 shooting and also added five rebounds and four assists...Lancaster Bible held the rebounding edge, 37-23...Each team turned the ball over 11 times.

The Coach Says: "When everyone plays their role, both defensively and offensively, we are tough to beat," Lancaster Bible Head Coach Zach Filzen said. "When we go haywire, it goes bad pretty quickly, but tonight we didn't do that very often and I thought the guys played well."

On Beating a Team Three Times in One Year: "The first time we played them it was ugly by both teams," Filzen said. "These last two meetings have been good games and Bryn Athyn played really well both times. They shot the ball well both times and we needed to play some of our better games to beat them."

On Austin Brown's Big Night: "He has played well in practice all year and it just hasn't translated to games some nights, but tonight, he attacked the rim, moved the ball to the open player and when he gets hot shooting the ball, he can be one of the best shooters in the conference," Filzen said. 

On Playing Cazenovia in the NEAC Semifinals: "Cazenovia has improved a lot throughout the season and we are going to have to look at what they have done well lately and begin preparing," Filzen said. "At the same time, we need to make sure we are doing our job and controlling things we can control. We need to balance both handling things on our end and looking at our opponent."

Information Hodge Podge: Lancaster Bible is now 9-1 all-time against Bryn Athyn...This was Lancaster Bible's first-ever NEAC Quarterfinal contest as the Chargers were the host the past three seasons of the NEAC Final Four and thus got an automatic bid into the NEAC Semifinals...Tuesday was the first-ever NEAC playoff game for Bryn Athyn...This is the first time Lancaster Bible has defeated an opponent three times in one season since the 2013-14 campaign when the Chargers beat Penn St. Berks three times en route to a berth in the NEAC Final (two regular season games and the NEAC Semifinals)...Lancaster Bible finishes the season with a 7-4 record at home...Austin Brown leads the Chargers with 45 made 3-pointers this season...Gallaudet will face Morrisville State in the other NEAC Semifinal on Saturday.

Up Next: Lancaster Bible will face Cazenovia in Saturday's NEAC Semifinal at 4 p.m...The game will be played at Gallaudet...The Chargers defeated Cazenovia, 66-53 on Jan. 21 in Lancaster, Pa. and at the time the loss dropped the Wildcats to 1-12 overall, but after Tuesday's win over SUNY Polytechnic, Cazenovia is now 9-4 since its loss in Lancaster.