Mercyhurst’s Athletic Center was filled with electric energy as both the Men’s and Women’s basketball teams played the Gannon Golden Knights on Feb. 9. The theme was a “whiteout” and all attendees were given a free t-shirt. There was an alumni reception at the Roost ahead of the games and all of the alumni had exclusive seating for the game.

The women’s team played first and during the first half, the Lakers were leading for the majority of the time. Gannon had an early lead of 4-0, but the Lakers came back quickly as junior Jayde Boyd had a layup and redshirt junior Julia Buchman scored on a jump shot. Boyd and Buchman would combine for the final nine points of the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Mercyhurst was up the entire time except for when the two teams were tied for about a minute. Gannon scored the final few points at the end of the first half to be down just one point with a score of 29-28.

The third quarter was rough for the Lakers and despite them having a game-high 17 points in the final frame, the Lakers were not able to beat the Golden Knights. The final score was 66-56.

Boyd was the lead scorer with a season-high 22 points and had six rebounds. Redshirt freshman Grace Centrulla was the next-highest total for Mer-cyhurst with 10 points for the game.

The men’s team was up next and by this point, the MAC was packed with students and alumni. The Lakers had a strong start to the game with seniors MiyKah McIntosh and Nicholas Lang both scoring three-pointers to give the team an 11-2 lead just three minutes into the game.

The score at halftime was 44-31 in favor of the Lakers. McIntosh had nearly a perfect half as he was 6-6 from the floor, 4-4 from beyond the arc, and he only missed one of his free throws in the half.In the second half, Lang made a pair of free throws that was the first point scored after almost two minutes of play.

The Lakers then let their lead fall to just two points. McIntosh nailed a trio of free throws, which gave the Lakers the push to make their lead bigger. The Lakers then proceeded to have a seven-point run and three-pointers from Lang and senior Steve Cannady.

The Golden Knights outscored the Lakers 46-43 in the second half but were unable to come back from their large deficit from the first half. The Lakers were victorious with a 10-point win of 87-77.

Mercyhurst’s field-goal percent-age from the floor was 54.2 while Gannon just had 50.9 percent. McIntosh finished with 28 points to tie Gannon’s, Braden Olsen. The Lakers also had two 14-point scorers from graduate student Cameron Gross and Lang.The team was greeted by the entire student section on the court as soon as the time hit zero in celebration of an exciting vic-tory.