BETHLEHEM, Pa. - The Northampton men's basketball team dropped an overtime thriller on Saturday afternoon, falling 97-95 to NJCAA Division II Raritan Valley Community College, at the Arthur L. Scott Center. 

In a game that the lead was never more than 10 points for either team, the Spartans found themselves trailing 84-82 with under 2 seconds to play in regulation, when Zykir Williams (Philadelphia, PA/Boys Latin Charter ) scored at the buzzer to send the game to overtime. 

"Really competitive game between two good teams," remarked Head Coach Brennan McCarthy, "overall, I am proud of how we competed ... RVCC is a very good team, that will probably be ranked in the top-10 this week in Division II.  Unfortunately for us, we simply committed too many turnovers (25) and didn't convert free throws (17/27) and you can't afford to do that against anyone, let alone a quality DII opponent."

Michael Marable (Harrisburg, PA/Susquehanna Twp.) led the Spartans with 27 points on 12 of 18 from the floor and grabbed a team-high 14 rebounds while Mel Copeland (Allentown, PA/William Allen) added 24 points and 10 boards.

The Spartans out-rebounded the Lions 53-24, but were outscored at the charity stripe 25 to 17. 

The 9th ranked Spartans, now 3-1 overall, travel to Lehigh Carbon Community College on Tuesday night for a 7pm contest. 

RVCC, which was ranked 18th in Division II last week, improves to 4-0.