Gettysburg outscored Ursinus in the first half and held off a Ursinus second-half surge to beat the Bears 64-50 in Centennial Conference play Thursday evening at Bream Gym.
Mackenzie Szlosek tallied a season-high 23 points, including making nine of 10 at the line, to lead the Bullets. Alayna Arnolie was the other Bullet in double digits with 12 points. She also added six rebounds and three steals. Shinya Lee led the Gettysburg defensively with three blocks and 11 rebounds. She also scored eight points.
For Ursinus, Chinwe Irondi was the only Bear to score double-digit points, putting up 17.
Arnolie got the first bucket of the first quarter over a minute in, and neither team scored for the next two minutes. Szlosek knocked down a pair at the line to give the Bullets a 4-0 lead, which Kelly Grant trimmed to just one with a 3-pointer a minute later. A free throw and layup gave Ursinus their first lead of the game, but Caitlyn Priore hit a jumper to tie things up and spark a 10-8 Gettysburg run to give the hosts a one-possession advantage after the first quarter.
A Lee layup and Arnolie free throw grew the lead back to three points before two Chinwe Irondi layups gave Ursinus the advantage again. Szlosek responded with seven straight points and Jameson Mott to give the Bullets their largest gap of the game, 29-20, forcing a Ursinus timeout.
Out of the break, the Bears went on a 4-0 run to cut the deficit back to five points, but AB Holsinger and Szlosek combined for five free throws to give Gettysburg a 34-24 lead going into the locker room.
Several misses by both teams to start the second half finally gave way to an Irondi layup that was immediately answered by a Lee bucket. Lee blocked Ursinus’ next attempt, and Szlosek hit a triple to grow the Gettysburg lead out to 13 points. The Bullets’ momentum was broken up momentarily by a Madison Smith free throw, but a triple by Arnolie started a Gettysburg 10-1 run over an almost three-minute time span as the Bullets etched a 21-point lead. With just under two minutes in the third quarter, the Bears looked to close the gap, going on an 8-3 to trail 52-36 going into the final quarter.
Once more, neither team could find the basket in the first 90 seconds. Arnolie tipped in a second-chance layup to start the fourth-quarter action, but Ursinus scored seven straight in just over a minute to chop the Bullets’ lead down to 10 points. Three Szlosek free throws made it 13 again with 4:01 left to play, but layups by Ava Possenti and Irondi brought the deficit down to nine points with 2:42 remaining. The Bears wouldn’t get any closer, however, as the Bullets finished out the game on a 6-1 run to emerge with the 64-50 win.
Gettysburg returns to action Saturday against Washington (Pa.). Game time is 1 p.m.
This story originally appeared on the Gettysburg College website.