SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. - Down eight points with five minutes to play, Millersville needed buckets, and  E.J. Matthews-Spratley, Carnell Henderson and Day Waters drilled key 3-pointers down the stretch to help Millersville to a 72-70 road win at Shippensburg. 

Waters finished with 18 points, and the only two threes he made in the game came in the final 2:42 when Millersville needed him most. Henderson scored a career-high 14 points by making 4 of 5 from three. Matthews-Spratley scored 12.

Millersville improved to 10-5 overall and 5-3 in the PSAC win the win while Shippensburg dropped to 6-9 overall and 1-7 in PSAC play, but Millersville head coach Casey Stitzel knows that record is not indicative of the Raiders' team, and while the Marauders have won four in a row at Heiges Fieldhouse for the first time since a stretch from 1986-1999, each of those four wins have been decided by 10 points or fewer. 

"We have struggled in close games, so anytime you can get a close win on the road is good," said Stitzel. "Shippensburg is gonna win games. I think (Coach Chris Fite) has a very good team. They weren't healthy at the beginning of the year, and now they're healthy, and that's helped them a lot."

The Marauders led by as many as nine early in the second half and led by six with 11 minutes to play. But Shippensburg out-scored Millersville 18-4 over the next six minutes as the Marauders shot 2 of 9. Trailing 65-57, Matthews-Spratley snapped Millersville out of its offensive funk. His 3-pointer started a 6-0 run that tied the game at 65. Millersville locked down Shippensburg for a fourth consecutive possession, and Waters sank his first three of the game on a kick-out pass from Cesar Tchilombo, giving Millersville a 68-65 advantage with 2:42 to play. PSAC leading scorer Markus Frank scored on a put-back to cut Millersville's lead to one with 52 seconds left. 
 
Stitzel called a timeout, and while they were looking to get Saraj Ali 1-on-1, Waters provided the secondary option. Millersville worked the shot clock until Waters caught the ball with a defender on his hip on the left wing. He created space with a shot fake, stepped under the defender and swished the 3-pointer at the buzzer. 

"We went to a ball screen, flare screen and then instead of rescreening for Day, we back screened for Saraj," said Stitzel. "Ship did a good job taking that away. But Day showed the ball fake on the guy who helped from the back screen. He did a really good job sidestepping the defender and getting the shot in the air. That's a big shot. Those are the shots that we haven't been making, and to make that and be the reason why we won the game is huge. Hopefully we can build on that momentum."

While Frank cut Millersville's lead to one with a 3-pointer of his own, six seconds wasn't enough time for the Raiders. Aamir Hurst made 1 of 2 free throws and a desperation, half-court heave from Michael Dickinson wasn't close. 

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

• Millersville made 9 of 21 (43%) from three and shot 47% from the field while Shippensburg also shot 47% but made 8 of 23 from three.
• Dickinson led Shippensburg with 18, and Frank finished with 15. 
• Millersville's Cesar Tchilombo grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds. Ali matched a season high with four assists. Hurst led the Marauders with three steals. 
• Millersville has now won eight consecutive games over Shippensburg--the program's longest run of success against the Raiders since an eight-game streak ended in 1987. 

UP NEXT 

• Millersville returns home on Thursday to host Shepherd, which entered the day as part of a four-way tie for first place in the PSAC East with Millersville, East Stroudsburg and West Chester.