LANCASTER, PA – Host and top-seeded Franklin & Marshall used a 17-4 run to open the second half to take control en route to a 60-47 win over Johns Hopkins in the Centennial Conference Championship game. The Blue Jays end their season at 17-10.
 
The Diplomats held a slim 24-23 lead at halftime after a 5-0 Blue Jay spurt to end the first. Vakaris Grauslys opened the second with a three-pointer, followed by a Josh Parra layup to spark that 17-4 run. Five players scored during the run for F&M, which snapped more than nine minutes. Parra capped the run with a bucket in the paint at 10:31 to stake the Diplomats to a 41-27 lead.
 
Brian Johansson then converted a three-point play to spark an 8-2 run. After a Parra layup, Johansson answered with one of his, followed by a John Windley triple, and it was an eight-point game with 7:52 to play. That Windley bucket gave him 1,200 points for his career, making him just the 11^th player in program history to reach the mark.
 
The teams traded buckets over the ensuing five and a half minutes and Franklin & Marshall led 54-44 with 2:18 to play. The Diplomats then scored six unanswered points, all at the free throw line, to push their lead to 16 with 42 ticks on the clock. Windley answered with three shots of his own from the charity stripe, but F&M would take home the title.
 
Wyatt Eglinton Manner opened the game with a jumper in the paint, but Franklin & Marshall answered with a 7-1 run to go up 7-3 at 17:18. The Blue Jays and Dips went back and forth over the ensuing 12 minutes and the home team led 20-18. Back-to-back layups from Parra and John Seidman pushed F&M's lead to 24-18 at 1:51, but Hopkins would close the half with a Charlie Jackson layup and a Johansson triple to make it 24-23 at the half.
 
Johansson led the Blue Jays with 18 points and 11 rebounds for his second double-double of the season. Windley finished with 14 points and three rebounds. Eglinton Manner added eight points and four rebounds. Seidman paced the Diplomats with 14 points and seven rebounds, while Parra had 12 points and seven boards. Grauslys chipped in 11 points before fouling out.