Beavers Hold Engineers to Three Field Goals Over Final 25 Minutes, Overcome 17-Point Deficit in Road Victory

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Senior Andrew Kirkpatrick (Winnetka, Ill.) scored 16 points and visiting Babson College rallied from a 17-point deficit late in the first half to defeat MIT in overtime, 62-52, in New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) men's basketball on Wednesday night inside Rockwell Cage.

Babson, which snapped a two-game skid, improves to 9-7 overall and 2-3 in the NEWMAC. MIT has now dropped two straight contests and is 3-11 overall and 1-4 in conference play.

Graduate student Ryan Cibull (Alameda, Calif.) scored 11 points, sophomore David Cross (Cinnaminson, N.J.) added 10 and first-year Tyler Lauder (Malvern, Pa.) finished with nine points, six rebounds and three blocks to lead the Beavers. Senior Aaron Gao (Bridgewater, N.J.) added eight points and first-year Timmy O'Toole (Milton, Mass.) contributed with six points and career highs of 15 rebounds and six steals in the win.

First-year Rome Delgado-Gonzalez (Miami, Fla.) poured in a game-high 30 points on 10-of-15 shooting to go along with six rebounds to lead the Engineers.

The Green and White made just one field goal over the first seven-plus minutes of the game and faced its biggest deficit of the night at 32-15 after sophomore Spencer Lin (Menlo Park, Calif.) canned two free throws with 2:29 to go in the stanza. Delgado-Gonzalez scored 18 points in the opening period, which included a late layup to send the hosts into the locker room up 35-19.

The Beavers opened the second half with a 7-0 run to get back within single digits and cut the margin to 40-34 on a layup by Kirkpatrick with 11:15 remaining. O'Toole turned a steal into a layup on the other end to make it a three-point game at the 8:33 mark and Cross converted following another Engineers' turnover to trim Babson's deficit to 45-43 with 5:40 left in regulation.

Kirkpatrick followed a jumper by Gao with two free throws to tie the game at 47 with under four minutes to play and O'Toole finished a layup inside after Lauder had tied the game to give the Beavers their first lead of the night at 51-49 with 56 seconds to go. Delgado-Gonzalez tied it up with two free throws with 43 seconds left and Cibull's three-pointer from the left corner with 0:02 remaining wouldn't go down sending the game to overtime.

The Green and White dominated the extra session as Cross hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 3:24 to play, while Cibull buried his first triple of the night after a hoop by Lauder to extend the lead to 59-51 with 1:54 left. Sophomore Kade Killen (Austin, Texas) hit 1-of-2 free throws for MIT but Cibull answered with a jumper on the ensuing trip to push Babson's lead to nine with just over a minute to go.

The Beavers shot just 35.9 percent but turned the Engineers' 27 turnovers into 24 points. After shooting 66.7 percent (14-of-21) in the first half, MIT went 3-of-23 (13 percent) in the second half and overtime.

Both teams return to action on Saturday at 1 p.m. as Babson travels to Coast Guard while MIT visits Emerson.

GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are 59-25 all-time against MIT and have won four straight in the all-time series going back to 2020.
• Five of the last nine meetings between the teams have gone to overtime.
• Babson is 5-0 this season and has won 14 straight games going back to 2019-20 when holding its opponents under 60 points.
• The Beavers are 6-2 this season when forcing at least 16 turnovers.