CLARION, Pa. --- The Golden Eagle men's basketball team held off a second-half charge at home on Tuesday night, with Clarion defeating Bryant & Stratton 87-81 at Tippin Gymnasium to even their record at 2-2.
 
It was a back-and-forth slugfest between the Bobcats and the Golden Eagles, with Clarion erasing an early deficit to take a double-digit lead into the halftime break. Bryant & Stratton got the better of the second half, outscoring the Golden Eagles 46-42 and pulling within one possession with 89 seconds remaining in the game.
 
The Golden Eagles needed to lock things down in the stretch, and lock it down they did. Gerald Jarmon was responsible for all six of Clarion's points in the final minute and a half, starting with a pull-up jumper at the 1:11 mark to give Clarion a 83-78 lead. The high-scoring guard struck again on the next possession, drawing contact from Davon Ware but ignoring it and draining a three-pointer from the left wing to make it 86-78. Jarmon missed the subsequent free throw, but made another down the stretch to secure Clarion's two-possession lead and the win.
 
Jarmon finished with a team-high 23 points on 8-of-21 shooting, including a 4-of-6 mark from three-point range. Mekhi Reynolds was the most efficient Golden Eagle scorer, recording 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting in just 22 minutes of play. Justice Easter came off the bench for 12 points while Fray Nguimbi had 11 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
 
The Bobcats opened up an early lead, going up 21-16 on a three-pointer by Sam Dorissaint at the 11:48 mark of the first half. Reynolds slashed the lead to 21-18 with a make off his own offensive rebound, and the junior scored a transition bucket with 10:59 remaining to cut it to one point. Jayson Harris finally put the Golden Eagles in the lead at the 8:34 mark, hitting a layup in the paint, and Reynolds stretched it out to 33-27 with a midrange jumper.
 
Nguimbi gave Clarion a double-digit lead after Justice Easter swiped the ball from Jaeger Martino, scoring in transition on a dunk to make it 40-29. Reynolds buried a three-pointer in the final seconds of the half to make it 45-35, and the lead went as high as 13 points in the second half, after Jarmon scored on a short jumper. Bryant & Stratton rallied in the final minutes of action, cutting the lead back to single-digits after a DJ Little transition bucket. Dorissant made a jumper to cut it to 74-68 with 4:52 remaining, and Ware made a pair of free throws with 1:29 left to go to pull it to 81-78.
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