Box Score OBERLIN, Ohio – The Kenyon College men's basketball team raced out to an early 11-point lead during Wednesday night's North Coast Athletic Conference game at Oberlin College. While that lead all but disappeared as the game went on, the Lords did manage to hold off the host Yeomen and escaped Main Gymnasium with a 64-63 victory.

Oberlin pushed the tempo in the second half and slowly chipped away at the Kenyon lead. The Yeomen tied up the Lords, 44-44, at the 10:42 mark and later closed to within two points twice in the game's final 70 seconds. When Randy Ollie's pair of free throws fell through for Oberlin, the Lords held a 62-60 lead with 1:09 left. Kenyon sophomore Brien Comey responded with two clutch free throws of his own with 20 seconds left, but that still wasn't enough to keep the Yeomen away.

Seven seconds after Comey's free throws, Geoff Simpson converted a layup to move the Yeomen back within two. Kenyon missed its next free throw attempt and Jack Poyle of Oberlin hit 1-of-2 freebies to make the score 64-63 with five seconds left. Kenyon again missed its final free throw attempt, giving the Yeomen one last shot, but Emmanuel Lewis' wild three-point attempt was well off the mark as the horn sounded.

Despite the close call and late missed free throws, the Lords never trailed throughout the entire 40 minutes and they ended up going 8-of-12 at the line. That's the same line where Oberlin made nearly three times as many trips and pumped in 20-of-30 free throw attempts.

Kenyon's best play came early on. With a 4-3 lead, the Lords ripped off a 10-0 run which was ignited by five straight points from Ikenna Nwadibia. Julian Pavlin tossed in a three-pointer and Cooper Handelsman laid one in from close range to give Kenyon a 14-3 lead with 13:02 showing on the clock. The Lords defense played well too, holding the Yeomen without a single field goal for a five-minute stretch.

The Lords wound up holding Oberlin to just seven field goals in the first half and rode the quick offensive start into halftime with 31-24 advantage. The Yeomen cranked up their shooting percentage to 52.0 percent in the second half, but still shot just 37.7 percent (20-of-53) for the game. Kenyon finished at 45.6 percent (26-of-57), including 57.1 percent (4-of-7) from three-point territory.

Nwadibia kept his double-double streak alive, cranking out his sixth-straight with team-highs of 22 points and 10 rebounds. Pavlin went 3-of-4 from downtown and finished with 11 points. Brian Lebowitz aided the Lords' efforts on both sides of the floor as he racked up ten points, nine rebounds, four steals, and two blocked shots. Those two blocked shots gave him 125 for his career and moved him into sole possession of second place among Kenyon's all-time leaders. Chris Donovan '95 is the record-holder with 161 career blocked shots.

The win bumped Kenyon's records to 2-4 overall and 1-1 in NCAC action. Oberlin fell to 1-6 overall and 0-4 in the conference. The Lords will aim for another win Saturday, when they host the Hiram College Terriers at 3 p.m.