EASTON, Pa. – Sophomore Tyrone Perry sunk a triple from the right corner with 2.6 seconds to play and senior co-captain Myles Cherry followed with two free throws at the 1.5-second mark as the Lafayette men's basketball team knocked off Colgate in the program's first-ever School Day game on Wednesday morning/afternoon at Kirby Sports Center, 71-67.
 
Trailing by a 60-45 score with 6:45 to play, the Leopards flipped the switch in a second half dominated by Colgate up to that point. A 13-0 run over a 2:14 stretch including two triples from Perry forced a Raiders' timeout at 4:31 with the margin just two, 60-58.
 
After a three from senior co-captain Lukas Jarrett at the top of the key gave Lafayette its first lead since 5:30 left in the first half, the final 2:27 went back-and-forth as Colgate's Nelly Cummings answered a Cherry bucket in the lane to put the Raiders up 67-66 with 1:09 remaining. An offensive foul gave the ball back to the visitors, but Will Rayman missed on a three attempt to set up the biggest shot of the game from Perry.
 
At the end of the shot clock and the game clock ticking under five seconds, senior co-captain Lukas Jarrett drove to the middle and kicked to Perry in the right corner, who launched the winning bucket, a highly-contested three-pointer that caught nothing but net. Colgate threw the ball away on its counter opportunity and Cherry iced the game, making it a two-possession lead with a pair of foul shots and 1.5 seconds on the clock, closing it with a final of 71-67.
 
The win is the third straight for the Maroon and White, snapping a seven-game Colgate win streak as the Raiders were the only remaining unbeaten Patriot League squad entering the day. Lafayette improves to 11-5 overall this season and 3-2 in conference action, while Colgate falls to 13-6 and 4-1 in league play.
 
Lafayette can give a lot of the credit for Wednesday's performance to the fifth- and sixth-grade students from Easton Area School District, making it an incredible atmosphere all afternoon. More than 1,200 students filled Kirby Sports Center and were treated to an instant classic.
 
Perry led all scorers with a career-high 19 points on 7-of-10 from the floor and 5-of-8 from three-point range. Junior Justin Jaworski, Cherry, junior E.J. Stephens and Jarrett all finished n double-figure scoring with 16, 14, 12 and 10 points, respectively, the second time this season Lafayette has put five in double digits.
 
Jarrett was all over the floor, coming just a few plays shy of a triple-double with nine rebounds and a career-high seven assists to accompany his 10 points. Lafayette committed just four turnovers to 11 assists in the second 20 minutes of action, shooting 49.1 percent from the field on the afternoon (28-of-57).
 
Both sides were efficient over the first four minutes as Lafayette used a pair of strong finishes on the left block from Jarrett to take an early 7-6 lead. Five straight out of a timeout put Colgate in front, but Jaworski answered with back-to-back threes around the 12-minute mark to knot it at 13-13 toward the midway point of the half.
 
Offensive execution continued to win out over the next four minutes as a pair of Stephens mid-range jumpers put the Leopard lead at 21-20 with 7:54 to play in the half. Then, the offense cooled as back-to-back Colgate layups forced a Leopard timeout with 3:18 on the clock and the deficit at three, 28-25.
 
The Raiders put five more on the board to extend their lead as high as eight before Stephens' three at 2:15 stopped the run. Lafayette closed the final two minutes on a 6-1 surge to trim the Colgate advantage to three at the break, 34-31.
 
Colgate stepped on the gas immediately in the second half, forcing a timeout less than two minutes in with the lead at seven, 41-34. The timeout stopped the run for a spurt with back-to-back buckets from Cherry and Jaworski, but the offense went away over the next five-minute stretch as the Raiders grew their lead to 12, 53-41, with 11:38 to go.
 
The visiting lead moved as high as 15 with 6:45 to go until the Lafayette offense finally woke up. The 13-0 run completely flipped momentum and Lafayette made all the plays down the stretch to put a 71-67 victory in the win column.
 
The Maroon and White will take their three-game win streak to Annapolis, Maryland in their next contest on Saturday, battling with Navy at 4 p.m.