CLINTON, S.C. – Parity in the Big South continues to reign supreme.
 
Just three days after stunning Big South powerhouse Winthrop 75-61 on the road, Longwood (12-8, 2-3 Big South) stumbled late in the second half against Presbyterian and fell 71-64 Saturday evening at the Templeton Center.
 
In a matchup between two teams that entered the night 2-2 in conference play and were both one win away from jumping into the top half of the league standings, Presbyterian freshman Adam Flagler scored a game-high 21 points and sparked an end-game rally that sent the Blue Hose (11-9, 3-2 Big South) to their fifth straight home win.
 
Flagler scored 10 points in the game's final eight minutes, jump-starting a game-changing 12-0 run that saw Presbyterian turn a 53-50 deficit into a multi-possession lead that they held on to for the duration.
 
The Blue Hose won the final eight minutes of the game, beginning with a Flagler three-pointer with 7:59 to play that tied the game at 53-53. Romeo Crouch followed with a go-ahead three-pointer 36 seconds later, Flagler hit another three-pointer that turned the lead to nine points, and Presbyterian held Longwood scoreless on 12 of 14 possessions to lead by as many as eight points in the final minute.
 
"Our guys have to learn and understand that each and every night if you want to win and play at your highest level, you have to compete to the best of your ability," said Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich. "You can't take plays off or just hope things are going to fall into place. This league is too good. Every team has good players, and they want to win too."
 
On a night in which four Big South games on the schedule were decided by 10 points or fewer and another went to overtime, Presbyterian did just enough to pull away from the Lancers, who entered halftime trailing 34-27 but mounted a 17-4 run out of the break to reclaim the lead. Both teams battled from there, exchanging the lead four times until Crouch's three-pointer with 7:23 left gave the Blue Hose the lead for good.
 
Flagler's 21 points and an 11-point, 12-rebound double-double from Cory Hightower were enough to offset an 18-point night from Longwood junior Shabooty Phillips. Phillips hit 4-of-8 three-pointers and added seven rebounds, but the rest of Longwood's lineup – even with 11 points from Isaiah Walton and nine from Sean Flood – shot just 15-of-47 (.319) from the floor and 4-of-27 (.148) from three-point range.
 
"One of the problems was we weren't defending them very well," Aldrich said. "They were getting offensive rebounds, and that impacts our ability to get transition baskets. When their defense is set up, it's a lot harder to score.
 
"I thought in the first half we got very stagnant, and to be honest, PC did an amazing job of flying around defensively. It was extremely difficult to get into the lane. They were really in their gaps very well, I thought, and really crowding the lane extremely well."
 
The Blue Hose became only the eighth team in 20 games this season to top 70 points against Longwood, and only the 10th to shoot better than 40.0 percent from the floor. They outscored the Lancers 26-18 in the paint and turned 11 offensive rebounds into 19 second-chance points. Flagler's game-tying three-pointer with 7:59 left accounted for three of those second-chance points after Crouch corralled an offensive rebound and dished it to Flagler on the perimeter.
 
"Offensively, every 50-50 ball, [Presbyterian] came up with," Aldrich said. "We'd block a shot, they'd run in and go get it. They outrebounded us. They just wanted it more than we did.
 
"We said before the game when we got on the bus tonight, we wanted to be the team that was the attacking team. Sadly I don't think we can say that. They wanted it more than we did. In the second half, that first bit, we really did come out with an aggressive posture, and good things happened. That was great, but to PC's credit, they fought back and countered our punch."
 
The loss continues an up-and-down January for the Lancers, who after posting back-to-back winning months in November and December have alternated wins and losses in all five games of the new year. However, in the midst of their best 20-game start to a season since 2000-01, Longwood has lost back-to-back games just once all year, racking up a 7-1 record in games following a defeat.
 
That trend will face its biggest test Monday when Longwood – on just two days rest – will host Big South frontrunner and preseason favorite Radford (13-6, 5-0 Big South) in Willett Hall at 7 p.m. That game will be a rematch of another slugfest in which the reigning Big South champion Highlanders overcame a 12-point second-half deficit to pull out a 71-64 win in Radford, Va.
 
"Really, we just have to get better at what we do," Aldrich said. "We have to compete at a higher level, a more consistent level, and then we have to execute on our principles a little better. Once we do that, I think we'll put ourselves in a better position to be successful."
 
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