Pittsburgh, Pa. - In a battle between teams tied for fifth place in the Atlantic 10 Conference, Duquesne's Aaron Jackson scored the Dukes' last 11 points as Duquesne registered a 70-68 victory against the Saint Louis Billikens at the A.J. Palumbo Center in Pittsburgh.
The Dukes scored the first four points of the game until a Kevin Lisch trey handed the Billikens their first lead 7-6 at the 14:40 mark. The Dukes answered with six straight points to retake the lead, until a III hit an acrobatic shot in the lane at the 8:56 mark to pull SLU to within one 14-13.
The Dukes hit their first 3-pointer of the evening as part of a 5-0 run and inched out to a 21-16 advantage. Duquesne led 23-16 before the Billikens went on a 6-0 run. Lisch sank a 3-pointer and then hit one free throw. A Liddell jumper from the left wing cut the deficit to 23-22 with 2:34 left in the first half. The Dukes led 27-22 but the Billikens scored the last five points of the period. Lisch was left wide open on the left side for a trey, and a Mitchell hoop tied the game 27-27 at intermission.
The teams traded 3-pointers to start the second half, with the Billikens taking a 36-35 lead on an Eberhardt jumper. The Dukes hit their third trey early in the second half to push ahead by two and took a 44-40 lead after eight minutes of action. Another 3-pointer handed the Dukes a seven-point lead, but Lisch answered with his fourth shot from beyond the arc. Duquense led 50-43, but the Billikens tallied seven consecutive points, capped by a three-point play by Willie Reed, to forge a 50-50 tie with just under nine minutes to play. Eberhardt's jumper in the paint gave the Billikens a 54-52 lead with 5:55 to play in the contest. Mitchell fed Eberhardt for an easy layup as SLU pushed to a 56-52 margin. Conklin took a charge, and Mitchell's jumper built the Billiken lead to 58-52 with 4:35 remaining in the game. Lisch hit two free throws for a 60-53 lead, but another 3-pointer by Bill Clark drew the Dukes to 60-56 with 3:58 left. Lisch drilled a trey for a 64-59 SLU lead with 2:49 left, but the Dukes scored five straight to tie the contest 64-64 on an Aaron Jackson bucket a the 1:40 mark. Eberhardt hit one free throw for a 65-64 SLU lead with 1:23 left. Jackson sank two charity tosses at the 1:06 mark to give Duquesne a 66-65 lead, and after a Billiken miss, he hit both ends of a one-and-one for a 68-65 lead with 21.8 seconds to play. The Billikens' attempted a game-tying 3-pointer, but the shot just missed, and Jackson hit two more free throws to seal the game with 5.1 seconds remaining. Mitchell hit a long 3-pointer at the buzzer for the final two-point margin.
Kevin Lisch tied his career high with six 3-pointers en route to a team-high 23 points. Mitchell added 17 points, and with five assists, went over the 100 mark for the season. Eberhardt hit all five of his field goal attempts and finished with 12 points. Aaron Jackson tied Lisch for game-high honors with 23 points, while Bill Clark hit 5-of-6 from 3-point range and accounted for 19 points. The Billikens hit 57.8 percent from the field, their second-best shooting performance of the season. The Dukes hit nine 3-pointers, the most by a SLU foe this season, and shot 51 percent from the field overall.
The Billikens fall to 17-12, 8-7 in the A-10, while the Dukes move to 18-10, 9-6 in the league. The Billikens close out the regular season this Saturday, March 7, when La Salle visits for a 7 p.m. tip on Senior Day.
