Tars Rally Late, Top Eckerd In A Thriller.

The Rollins College Tars despite trailing 42-27 with 17:34 to go advanced to the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Sunshine State Conference Championship Game with a 72-65 win over the Eckerd Tritons. The Tars had three players in double figures on the day. Nick Wolf led the way with 27 points, including 23 in the second half. Myk Brown made 12 of 16 free throws and scored 16 points. Nikola Baran added three triples on his way to a 13 point game. The Tars shot 46 percent (18 of 39) from the floor. Rollins shot 46 free throws making good on 34 of them. With the win the Tars improved to 24-5 on the year.

Eckerd was led by three players in double numbers also. Zaronn Cann led the way with 16 points. Lance Kearse posted 15 and Woody Taylor added 10 for the Tritons. Eckerd shot 25-52 (48%) from the floor. The Tritons were 10 of 14 at the stripe. EC won the battle of the boards 29-26.

The Tars would open the game with a drive by Myk Brown and he would split a pair of free throws. That would be the Tars only lead of the first half. They would fall behind 10-4 early. Eckerd would control much of the first half and it would be 36-27 Tritons at the intermission. EC would come out in the second half and go on a 6-0 run to make it 42-27. The Tars would then begin their comeback with a 18-7 run and it would be a four point Eckerd lead (49-45) with 12 minutes left. Brock Blanchard would hit the layup that cut the lead to four. Eckerd would then go on another run and stretch the lead back out to 13 with 9:26 to go. Kearse would nail a trey to make the margin 13. The Tars would then get two monster three pointers from Nikola Baran and a pair of Ian Scott free throws to lessen the lead. Baran would hit two more jumpers and all of the sudden the Tars were within one at 60-59 with five minutes to go. Wolf and Baran would do the rest down the stretch to get the Tars the 72-65 win, Wolf scoring the game's final eight points. The Tars will face Barry in Sunday's Blue Cross and Blue Shield Sunshine State Conference Final. The Bucs upset Florida Southern later on Saturday. Tip time at the "Shark Tank" is set for 1 PM.