SALT LAKE CITY – The Westminster men's basketball team rallied from 10 points down in the second half before falling on a buzzer-beater from Colorado School of Mines, 69-67, on Saturday night in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference action.
 
Westminster (5-6, 5-4 RMAC) tied the game with 30.4 seconds to play on a layup from Zerrion Payton. After Colorado Mines (12-3, 7-2 RMAC) called a timeout, Murphy Gershman rebounded a Gaokul Natesan three and laid it is as time expired to win the game.
 
The Griffins held Mines to 38.2 percent shooting in the game, but the winner came on the 16 offensive rebound of the night for the Orediggers and gave them 20 second chance points in the game. Westminster shot 43.8 percent on the night and committed just nine turnovers, but they lost the rebounding battle, 39-28.
 
Casey Evans led the offense for the Griffins with 17 points on 7 of 13 shooting. Payton added 14 points – all in the second half – and Marcus Bryce scored nine points with eight rebounds.
 
Westminster's only lead of the night came at 2-0 and they trailed 25-14 with five minutes to play in the first half before closing the period on a 15-4 run. Mines twice had the lead to 10 points early in the first half before the Griffins used a 12-4 run to get within 52-51 with 7:53 to play.
 
The lead was back to 64-58 with 3:35 remaining when the Griffins again mounted a rally. They tied the game at 65-65 when Dayon Goodman made 1 of 2 free throws with 50 seconds to play. After Luke Schroepfer made two free throws with 42 seconds to play, Payton came up with an offensive rebounds and putback to tie the game and setup the final play.
 
Schroepfer led Mines with 17 points while Natesan added 15. The duo combined to make 7 of 17 from beyond the arc.
 
The Griffins will now return to the road to play a pair of RMAC games next weekend. The trip begins at Chadron State on Friday at 7:30 p.m. MST. That game can be seen live on the RMAC Network.