FARMVILLE, Va. – Big South double-doubles leader Ed Polite Jr. continued his dominance in the paint, scoring 18 points and grabbing 10 rebounds to help Radford outlast short-handed Longwood, 79-72, Saturday evening at the Dedmon Center.
 
Polite's double-double was his Big South-leading 13th of the season and provided just enough spark to send the Highlanders (12-16, 7-9 Big South) to their third win in the past four games. He was one of four double-figure scorers for Radford, which used a nine-man rotation to outlast the six-man deployment from head coach Jayson Gee's injury-depleted Lancers.
 
Longwood's diminished squad threw all they had at their Commonwealth rival, trailing just 32-29 in rebounding margin, shooting .429 (24-of-56) from the floor, .450 (9-of-20) from three-point range and a season-best .833 (15-of-18) from the free throw line. The performance saw all 72 points come from the starting five, including a career-high-matching 32 points from redshirt junior forward Khris Lane.
 
"We played hard and competed. We had the right attitude and didn't feel sorry for ourselves," Gee said. "I thought Isaiah Walton was tremendous. DJ [Allen] in so many ways was just phenomenal, along with Lane, obviously. I thought everybody came out and gave a tremendous effort. It just wasn't enough.
 
Behind Lane's 20-point second half, in which he hit 6-of-8 shots from the field and 3-of-4 from three-point range, the Lancers (6-21, 3-13 Big South) battled back from an eight-point halftime deficit to take a 64-61 lead with 5:01 remaining. That rally featured an 18-9 run over a nearly-eight-minute span in which Lane scored 10 points and the Lancers forced stops on nine of 11 Radford possessions.
 
"I was very, very proud of them," Gee said. "We had a great talk last night about where we were mentally, and I thought the guys really responded. Their attitude, their effort, mentality was extremely positive, and it gave us a chance to win this game."
 
The final five minutes of the game belonged to Radford, however, as freshman Donald Hicks delivered a go-ahead three-pointer that put the Highlanders up 66-64 with under four minutes to play and Radford outscored Longwood 16-8 the rest of the way. Polite added his final five points during that stretch, capping his night with a dagger of a layup at 2:02 that extended Radford's lead to six points and kept it at two possessions the rest of the way.
 
The Lancers had several chances to cut into that deficit but hit just one of their final eight shots from the field.
 
"We had a couple key turnovers there down the stretch that were difficult to make up for, and just poor execution on the offensive end that compounded that problem," Gee said. "Somehow, some way, we have to find a way to make those plays, and that's on all of us."
 
Walton finished the game with 16 points for his fifth consecutive double-figure scoring effort, while Allen added 14 and hit two treys to bring his career point total to 1,072 and continue his climb up Longwood's scoring leaderboard.
 
The loss precedes another Commonwealth rivalry showdown for the Lancers, who head to Big South No. 2 Liberty this Wednesday for a 7 p.m. tipoff in Lynchburg, Va. Longwood then returns to Willett Hall to host Charleston Southern on Feb. 25 for the regular season finale, prior to which the team will honor seniors Darrion Allen and Isaac Belton for the Senior Day ceremony.
 
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