Lexington, Ky. – The Transylvania men's basketball team endured a hot-shooting outside exhibition by the Hanover College Panthers in a 74-62 defeat on Wednesday evening at the Beck Center.

Hanover maintained its first place standing with an 8-1 record in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference and 12-2 overall while the Pioneers dropped to 3-4 in conference play and 8-6 overall.

The sharpshooting Panthers opened up the game on a 17-1 run to build a cushion, augmented by 7 for 12 shooting from behind the arc in the first half. Transylvania used defensive grit to cut the deficit to nine points at 25-16 with 7:36 left before the break, but Hanover found paydirt from inside and outside to reaffirm a 40-26 halftime advantage.

Both teams suffered a nearly four-minute long scoring drought to begin the second half before the Panthers got on the scoreboard. Zach Larimore scored five straight points to key a 7-0 run on the way to a team-high 17 points by the senior, slicing the deficit to 42-33.

Though Hanover cooled off mightily in the second half down to 31 percent shooting from the field, the Panthers hit 17 of 24 free throws in the final half to hold off Transy, which only connected on 3 of 14 triples in the game.

Hunter Penn had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds, hitting on 6 of 11 field goal attempts and adding a block.

Transylvania aims for an HCAC win on Saturday at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Fightin' Engineers. Tip-off is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. from Hulbert Arena. Spectators are currently not permitted at Rose-Hulman athletic events due to covid cases.

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