EMMITSBURG - When Sam Prescott stepped on the floor in the final minute of regulation he had almost no statistical evidence to show for his 18 minutes of playing time, his only two shot attempts resulting in an air ball and a miss off the rim.
But the Mount St. Mary's senior guard wasn't thinking about his rough night when he received the ball on the right wing with time winding down and his team trailing by three points.
Prescott swished a 3-pointer to tie the game with 5.4 second left, then scored on a spectacular drive while being fouled to start the extra period as the Mount rallied from a nine-point deficit late in regulation to beat Fairleigh Dickinson 87-82 in overtime Thursday at Knott Arena.
"You don't think about it. At that moment, you know we're down, you know we need a couple plays but you don't think about missing, you just shoot it," he said. "You practice every day for this."
Senior guard Rashad Whack scored a team-best 23 points to go with a career-high 10 rebounds, Julian Norfleet had 17 points and matched his career high with 11 assists and Gregory Graves added 15 points and eight rebounds for the Mount, which moved into a tie for third place in the Northeast Conference.
Prescott finished with eight points, five rebounds and an assist. Through 39 minutes, 54 seconds he had zero points, zero assists and three boards.
"I was just having a bad game - struggling to find my shot, missed a couple of assignments here and there," Prescott said. "I finally reset when it mattered."
MSM coach Jamion Christian pulled Prescott out of the game with 5:37 to go in regulation and left him on the bench until only 15 seconds remained, his team in desperate need of a 3-pointer. Christian said putting Prescott back in was an easy decision.
"I really just have so much confidence in him," Christian said. "I'm probably the most overly optimistic guy in the world, but I think all of our guys are just so talented, when they're in the right mind-set.
"I knew he was having a tough game ... [but] when we needed him, at the biggest moment, our team still had faith in him."
Indeed, freshman Will Miller got the ball near the top of the key on the Mount's final possession of regulation and, when the Knights converged, found a wide-open Prescott.
"A freshman catches the ball there with a chance to shoot it, has great composure and doesn't think twice about giving him the ball," Christian said. "When it went up I knew it was going in."
That didn't clinch overtime, however. Fairleigh Dickinson's Sidney Sanders (21 points) drove the length of the floor in less than five seconds and got a good look in the lane, but 7-foot MSM center Taylor Danaher altered it just enough to cause it to carom off the front of the rim.
After the tying 3-pointer, it was a whole new Prescott in overtime.
"It changed everything," he said. "Changed my whole mood and I came out aggressive."
He immediately drove to the basket and scored while being fouled, his free throw giving him six points in 14 seconds and giving his team a lead it never relinquished. He grabbed an offensive rebound a then registered his only assist of the game a minute later, finding Whack for a big 3-pointer. And Prescott scored in the lane halfway through OT to make it 79-71. The Mount's lead grew to as many as 12 points.
None of it seemed remotely possible when Sanders hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Knights (8-13, 4-3) a 67-58 lead with 3:46 to play. Lost because of the offensive heroics of Prescott, Whack and the rest was a remarkable defensive job by MSM. After that Sanders 3, Fairleigh Dickinson never converted another field goal until the final minute of overtime, a span of more than eight minutes.
"We've been talking a lot more about defense," said Christian, whose team entered with the worst field goal percentage defense in the league. "It all starts with our seniors really locking in."
Having lost two of three and facing a stretch of five out of six games on the road after a Saturday home game against LIU Brooklyn, the Mount used a 12-2 run to take an early 20-16 lead. They still led 23-21 with eight minutes left in the half when they went cold, managing just one field goal over the next 7:29 as Fairleigh Dickinson ran out to a 10-point lead. They were down 38-30 at the break.
