STATESBORO, Ga. – App State men's basketball fell to Georgia Southern in its regular season finale by a 65-57 score on Saturday.
App State concludes the regular season with a 13-11 overall mark and 7-8 record in conference play. It marks the first time that the Mountaineers have concluded the regular season with back-to-back winning records since the 2009-10 season (20-11) and 2010-11 campaign (15-14). The Black and Gold finished the regular season last year with a 17-14 mark.
Back-to-back layups from
Donovan Gregory and
Adrian Delph gave App State a 55-53 lead with 4:26 remaining. Georgia Southern (13-12, 7-9 SBC) answered with a free throw and took the lead on a 3-pointer with 3:11 to go. On App State's next possession, Gregory converted on another layup to tie the game.
From there, the Eagles scored six straight points to open a 63-57 lead with 52 seconds left. The Mountaineers came up empty on their next possession and Georgia Southern put the game away with a pair of free throws.
Georgia Southern broke an early 8-8 tie with four straight points and eventually opened a 22-13 lead. App State answered back with back-to-back threes from Delph to pull within three points. The Eagles extended their lead to 28-21, but the Black and Gold closed the half on a 10-2 run, capped by a 3-pointer from Delph in the final seconds, to take a 31-30 lead into the break.
Delph paced the App State offense with a game high 19 points, to go along with three rebounds.
Justin Forrest chipped in with 12 points and six rebounds and
Michael Almonacy also reached double figures with 10 points and an App State career best four steals.
Xavion Brown finished with career highs of eight points and six rebounds. Gregory added six points and a team high eight rebounds.
Elijah McCadden had 18 points and nine rebounds for the Eagles, while Gedi Juozapaitis added 16 points and five boards.
The Mountaineers will shift their focus to the Sun Belt Tournament, which runs from March 5 to March 8 in Pensacola, Fla. The full bracket will be announced on Sunday.
App State men's basketball would like to thank the Law Offices of Timothy Welborn as its season sponsor.
