MEADVILLE, Pa. – The Kenyon College Lords basketball team snapped out of a three-game funk by producing a 79-61 North Coast Athletic Conference victory Saturday afternoon at Allegheny College. The win completed the season sweep for Kenyon, which defeated Allegheny 74-62 earlier this season and now has nine wins in its last ten meetings with the Gators.

For the first ten minutes of play, Kenyon (8-11, 5-7 NCAC) and Allegheny played stride-for-stride and neither team moved ahead by more than three points. The turning point came at the 9:18 mark of the first half, just after Allegheny's Andrew Sestina converted a layup to give the host Gators a 20-19 lead.

On the Lords' ensuing possession, senior center Brien Comey threw down a dunk that ignited a Kenyon 12-0 run. Following Comey's dunk, fellow senior Tim Connolly chalked up an old-fashioned three-point play, sophomore Alex Laub tossed in two from down low and freshman Matt Shifrin rattled off five straight points with a three-pointer and a pair of free throws.

That spurt gave the Lords a 31-20 lead and got them into halftime with a 38-33 advantage. The Lords led by as any as 13 points in the first half and by as many as 18 points in the second half, as the final score indicated.

The cushion gave Kenyon a little more latitude to launch three-pointers with confidence, something the team has improved upon throughout the season. In the first ten games of the season, the Lords hit threes at 27.9 percent (55-of-197), however, over their last nine games, the Lords shot 45.1 percent (69-of-153) from long range. Against Allegheny on Saturday, they shot 45.0 percent (9-of-20) from beyond the arc.

Although Connolly had only one of those nine Kenyon three-pointers, he led the team with 27 points. He slashed through the lane consistently and delivered an 8-of-13 shooting performance. When he didn't connect on field goals, he was drawing fouls and going to the free throw line, where he sank 10-of-11 attempts. He also stacked his stat line with eight assists and six rebounds.

Laub and Comey also helped punish Allegheny in the paint. Laub had a season-best 10 points, while Comey registered eight points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Shifrin finished with ten points and Alexander Powell had nine.

Allegheny (2-17, 2-10 NCAC) had a run of three-pointers early in the second half to pull within three points at 45-42, but Kenyon got a couple of free throws from Connolly and a three-pointer from Bennett Grigull to extend the lead to 50-42 with 14:18 left in the game. The Gators, who were held to 36.5 percent shooting (23-of-63), rang up the next basket, but never got closer than six points the rest of the way.

Up next for Kenyon is a road game scheduled for Wednesday night at The College of Wooster. The Fighting Scots defeated the Lords, 91-78, earlier this season in a physical game that saw 56 personal fouls whistled.