Box Score Box Score
CONWAY, SC--Coastal Carolina's Anthony Raffa banked in a three-pointer and converted three free throws in the final three minutes of the game to lead the Chanticleers to a 74-69 Big South Conference victory over Winthrop Thursday night at Kimbel Arena.
Coastal remains undefeated in conference play as it improves to 6-0 and 15-2 overall. The 6-0 start equals its previous best start set last season. Winthrop drops to 3-3 in the Big South and 7-9 overall.
The Chanticleers, who played without two starters in Mike Holmes and Desmond Holloway due to a suspension and an injury, took a 35-33 lead at halftime when Brandon Crawford took a feed from Kierre Greenwood and scored just before the buzzer ended the period. Sam McLaurin scored 10 of Coastal's first half points and finished with a career-high 17 points to go along with 10 rebounds. Coastal did not relinquish the lead in the second half and appeared to be on the verge of putting the game away when Raffa hit two free throws to give his team a 62-55 lead with 5:37 left to play.
Winthrop cut the deficit to a single bucket at 66-64 when
Robbie Dreher and
Andre Jones drilled back-to-back 3-pointers with 3:30 remaining. That is when Raffa came up with the shot of the game as he banked in a 3-pointer with the shot-clock nearing zero to put Coastal up 69-63 with 2:50 on the clock.
Dreher drew Winthrop to within two points again when he was fouled on a drive to the basket and converted two free throws to make the score 71-69 with 50 seconds left. The Eagles had a chance to tie the game or take lead after Dreher came up with a steal in Coastal's front court, but had the ball swiped from behind by Greenwood to foil that opportunity. Raffa came up with the loose ball and was immediately fouled by
Justin Burton with 7.1 seconds left. He hit the first free throw, but missed the second and came up with his own rebound only to be fouled immediately with 5.9 ticks left on the clock. He hit both free throws for the final 74-69 margin.
Dreher led four Eagles in double figures as he finished with a game-high 21. Jones finished with 16 for his second straight double digit game.
Reggie Middleton and
Charles Corbin had 11 each.
In addition to McLaurin's first double-double performance of the year, the Chanticleers got 19 points from preseason all-conference selection Chad Gray and 12 each from Dexter Moore and Raffa.
Winthrop will travel to Charleston Southern on Saturday for a 4:30 p.m. game.
