Staff report

MARS HILL — Catawba’s Justin Banks’ tip-in beat the buzzer — and the Mars Hill Lions — in a wild South Atlantic Conference game played in front of 225 thoroughly entertained fans in the mountains.

Catawba scored 50 points in the second half and rallied to beat the Lions 87-85.

Catawba, the sixth-place team in the 13-team SAC, destroyed Mars Hill on the boards, 48-19, with an insane 28 offensive rebounds. When you win the rebounding battle by a margin like that, you should win the game by 30, but the Indians tend to make things exciting, especially on the road.

Mars Hill (7-18, 5-18) is one of the bottom-tier SAC teams, but had a serious chance to win because the Lions shot 57 percent and made five more 3-pointers than Catawba did.

Catawba struggled on 3-pointers (3-for-14), but got enough layups and stick-backs to shoot a respectable 46 percent from the field.

Nick Walker scored 21. Banks, who came off the bench, had 20, while Ibra Athie had 10 points and 15 rebounds. Solomon Tucker scored 12.

Kadyn Dawkins scored 22 for the Lions.

Catawba trailed 42-37 at the break.

The Indians were down 85-81 when Banks made a layup to cut Mars Hill’s lead to two with 1:24 left. Montraivis White made a jump shot for 85-all with 43 seconds left.

After Mars Hill missed, Catawba had a chance for the last shot. Walker missed, but Banks was there for the winning follow.

Catawba    37    50   — 87

Mars Hill  42     43   — 85

CATAWBA scoring — Walker 21, Banks 20, Tucker 12, Athie 10, Robinson 9, McDuffie 6, Chase Daniel 5, White 4.