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The Muhlenberg men's basketball team came back from eight points down in the second half to defeat Johns Hopkins, 58-53, and keep its Centennial Conference postseason hopes alive.

With two weeks to go in the regular season, the Mules (8-11, 5-8) are within two games of fourth place in the packed CC middle. A win at Dickinson in Monday's makeup game would leave them a game out of the final playoff spot.

Junior Jon Schreer scored a team-high 12 points and senior Alec Stavetski and sophomore Owen McLeod added 10 apiece in a game where offense was hard to come by. The Mules won despite shooting just 31.4 percent from the field; they held the Blue Jays (10-10, 7-6) to 37-percent shooting and were a stellar 23-for-25 from the foul line.

After taking a six-point lead into the halftime break, Muhlenberg weathered a 16-2 run that saw Hopkins open up a 39-31 advantage a little more than six minutes into the second half. The Mules buckled down of defense after that and allowed only three field goals the rest of the game.

Muhlenberg drew even at 41-41 on a pair of free throws by McLeod (pictured above) with 8:31 to play. McLeod tied the score again at 46 on a three-pointer, then finished a fast-beak layup off a pass from Stavetski to make it 48-46 with 4:26 left.

The Blue Jays answered with a basket the tie the game for a final time, but on the next possession, sophomore JeanLee Baez tapped an offensive rebound back, and Schreer fed sophomore Nick Rindock for a reverse layup to put the Mules ahead to stay with 3:27 remaining.

Baez made both ends of a one-and-one at the 1:08 mark to extend the lead to 52-48. Johns Hopkins cut the gap to one on a three-pointer, but Schreer, Rindock and Stavetski combined to go 6-for-6 from the line in the final 16.5 seconds to ice the win.

In addition to his 10 points, McLeod recorded four assists (without a turnover) and five steals. Freshman Erik Werheim scored all eight of his points in the first half, and junior Brandon LaRose also finished with eight.