CLARION, Pa. --- The Golden Eagle men's basketball team erased an early second-half deficit, but they were unable to hold off a late charge from Lake Erie in falling 77-70 to the Storm at Tippin Gymnasium on Saturday night.
 
The Storm led 70-66 with 1:49 remaining in the game, thanks to a made three-pointer by Caleb Piks that happened simultaneously with a foul against Jonny Manning. Manning sank one of two free throws to make it a two-possession ballgame, but Cam Kearney responded with four straight free throw makes to even it up with 1:03 left to go.
 
Manning recorded an and-one, scoring a layup through contact from Fray Nguimbi to give his team a three-point lead, and the Storm were able to keep the Golden Eagles off the scoreboard for the final 63 ticks of the clock to get the win.
 
That finish came after what had been a fairly solid second half for the Golden Eagles to that point. Clarion opened the period on an 8-2 run, taking a 41-39 lead on a midrange jumper from Gerald Jarmon, and built that into a five-point lead after Jarmon swished a three-pointer from the corner at the 17:38 mark. The game stayed within one possession for much of the next six minutes until Jayson Harris scored on the fast break to make it a 60-53 lead.
 
Harris scored with 8:49 left in the second half to give the Golden Eagles their largest lead of the game, a 61-53 advantage, and it was still a three-possession lead for Clarion with under four minutes to play after a Kearney free throw make it 66-59.
 
Kearney and Mekhi Reynolds both cracked the 20-point barrier, with Kearney scoring 20 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the field and an 11-of-12 day at the charity stripe. Reynolds, meanwhile, scored 21 points on 8-of-17 shooting and also pulled down five rebounds. Jarmon scored 16 points and Harris contributed 12 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
 
The Storm were the aggressors early in the game, going up 8-2 in the first 2:35 of play. Reynolds did his part to erase that lead, scoring on a jumper at the 17:05 mark, and Harris and Jarmon put Clarion ahead with jumpers on back-to-back possessions. Jarmon punctuated the 9-0 run with a pair of free throws, scoring with 15:13 left in the first to make it 11-8 for the Golden Eagles.
 
The teams traded points and the lead, with Lake Erie taking a 24-18 lead with under 10 minutes to play in the half. They led by as many as nine points with 2:19 left to go in the first, but Reynolds scored a transition bucket to cut it to 35-28, and Harris hit a three-pointer on the next offensive possession to make it a 35-31 lead. Reynolds hit a three-pointer from the left wing with under a second remaining in the half to slice the lead to just one point, making it 37-36 at the break.  
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