The Muhlenberg men's basketball team built a big second-half lead and held on down the stretch to score a huge 84-77 win at Johns Hopkins.

The two-time defending Centennial Conference champions, the Blue Jays (6-2, 2-1) came in ranked No. 7 in Division III, with their only previous loss coming by 13 points to top-ranked Christopher Newport. They defeated their first two CC opponents, Gettysburg and Washington College, by an average of more than 30 points, and had not lost to a CC opponent other than Swarthmore since the 2018-19 season.

The Mules (5-1, 2-1) completed their challenging opening gauntlet of Swarthmore, Ursinus and Johns Hopkins - the only three teams to win CC playoff games last year - with two wins and an overtime loss at Swarthmore.

Junior Giovanni Rubino led Muhlenberg with 23 points, while sophomore Charlie Gillikin scored a career-high 16 and graduate student Dan Gaines and sophomore Jayson Williams-Johnson added 14 apiece. 

Muhlenberg led by 15 points, 62-47, with 11:44 to play after back-to-back "and-ones" by Gaines before the Blue Jays began their comeback attempt. They were within three, at 75-72, and took a three-pointer with a chance to tie with 1:15 remaining. It missed, and Gaines chased down the rebound, his ninth of the game, calling timeout as he was falling out of bounds.

After Rubino sank a pair of free throws, sophomore Luke Gordos made a big defensive play, challenging a drive to the basket without fouling. That led to a fast-break layup by Rubino off a long pass by Williams-Johnson (pictured above), making the score 79-72 with 54.1 seconds left.

Hopkins came back again and missed another three with a chance to tie at 80-77. Gordos snagged the rebound and made two free throws with 14.0 seconds to play to extend the lead to five, and Rubino provided the final margin with a pair of foul shots after stripping the ball from a Hopkins player under the basket.

The Mules shot 55.4 percent against a Blue Jay team that came in ranked 10th in Division III in scoring defense and 11th in field-goal percentage defense at .363.

Much of that was due to Gillikin, who was 5-for-7 from three-point range. He made two of his threes in a 12-2 second-half run that helped the Mules build their big lead, drawing a foul on one of them and making the free throw for a rare four-point play.

Muhlenberg trailed by seven points, 24-17, midway through the first half, but made eight straight field goals in one stretch, taking the lead for good at 31-28 on a deep three by Williams-Johnson with five minutes left in the half. 

In addition to his 14 points and 9 rebounds, Gaines recorded 4 assists to run his career total to 303, becoming the 21st player in CC history to surpass 300.