Second Half Comeback Nets Eagles A 63-56 Win Over Birmingham-Southern

BIRMINGHAM, AL--Winthrop outscored Birmingham-Southern 35-15 in the second half and overcame a 16-point second half deficit en route to a 63-56 win over the host Panthers in a non-conference game Thursday night in the Bill Battle Coliseum.

Pierre Wooten led the comeback with a career-high 20 points with 15 of those coming in the second half as the Eagles overcame a 44-28 BSC lead with 18:21 left in the game. The comeback equaled last year’s Big South Conference semi-final victory over Liberty. The victory improves Winthrop to 12-10 overall while Birmingham-Southern, a provisional member of the Big South Conference until 2003, drops to 11-12.

With the team’s leading scorer Greg Lewis sitting out the entire second half, a lineup consisting of Josh Grant, Alex English, Tywan Harris, Marcus Stewart and Wooten fueled the comeback. Walker and Stewart scored 10 points each with both players coming up with big shots in the final five minutes.

Grant scored a career-best six points and pulled down a career-high six rebounds. It was his driving layup off a three-quarter court pass from Wooten with 2:48 left in the game that knotted the score at 54-54. Following a basket by T.R. Reed that regained the lead for the Panthers at 56-54, Stewart came up with a big three-point play with a driving bucket and a free throw to give the Eagles their first lead of the game at 57-56 with 1:53 remaining.

After being burned for 41 points and 60 percent field goal shooting (17-28) in the first period, the Winthrop defense stiffened in the second half as it held the Panthers to just 21 percent (6 of 28). The Eagles shot just 36 percent from the floor for the game, but were nearly perfect at the charity stripe where they connected on 16 of 17 free throws compared to just 4 of 6 for BSC.

Reed, a 5-10 guarld, led Birmingham-Southern in scoring and rebounding with 18 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. Jakob Sigurdarson had 13 and Michael Bilostinnyi added 10 for the losers.