EASTON, Pa. – The Lafayette men's basketball team did just about everything right except win on Sunday afternoon at Kirby Sports Center, dropping a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Sacred Heart by a 64-62 score.

The Leopards held the Pioneers, ranked 20^th in the nation in scoring at 85.6 points per game this season, to a season-low 64 points on the day, but couldn't overcome another tough shooting performance, falling to 2-5 on the year overall. The Leopards went 24-of-71 from the field (33.8%) and 6-of-31 from three-point range (19.4%), but still had a chance to win it at the end.

With less than 10 seconds remaining, Sacred Heart's Cameron Parker was defended well by freshman Isaac Suffren, forcing up an off-balance layup that fell off the rim. Unfortunately, Sacred Heart's 6-10 forward Jare'l Spellman was in the right spot on the other side of the rim for the eventual game-winning tap-in.

Suffren had the best performance of his young career, finishing with a team-high and career-high 12 points on 6-of-8 from the field. Senior co-captain Paulius Zalys added 12 points and nine rebounds, while junior Lukas Jarrett chipped in with a career-high 11 boards to go along with his six points.

Sophomores E.J. Stephens and Alex Petrie scored 10 points to round out four double-figure scorers on the afternoon for the Maroon and White. Additionally, freshman Sean Good gave some of his best minutes with three blocks, a point and a rebound in eight minutes of action.

The game started slowly from either side as just five points were scored in the first three minutes. Lafayette forced four early Sacred Heart turnovers, but three's from Sean Hoehn and Cameron Parker put the visitors up by a bucket at the 14:35 mark, 8-6. The offense began to heat up from both sides over the next stretch as junior Kyle Stout's three-point play in transition took the half to its midway point with the Leopards still down two, 19-17.

The streaky opening half went back to the cold side for both sides as Jaworski's three with 3:10 left made it a one-point deficit, 25-24. But Sacred Heart closed the half on a 10-3 run to take an eight-point advantage into the halftime intermission, 35-27.

Neither team took control over the first four minutes of the second stanza, but six straight from Suffren cut the deficit to four with 12:03 to play, 40-36. Lafayette's momentum continued as Zalys' best stretch of the season with 10 of the team's 15 points over a four-minute span brought the Leopards even at 51-51.

After trading buckets, a 7-1 run with an acrobatic layup from Petrie and a triple in transition from Stephens forced a Pioneer timeout at the 4:42 mark with the Leopards up six, 60-54. Sacred Heart answered and closed the gap to 62-62 with 45 seconds to play and, after a timeout, got Spellman's put back with 3.1 seconds on the clock to take a 64-62 lead. Jaworski's runner from the left elbow was on line at the buzzer, but just clanged off the back iron as the buzzer sounded on a heartbreaking defeat, 64-62.

Lafayette heads to Connecticut this week for a pair of contests against UConn and Quinnipiac. The Leopards kick off the trip on Wednesday for a matchup with the Huskies at 6 p.m. on ESPNU.