LONDON, Ontario -- The Lincoln Memorial University men's basketball team found themselves in a dogfight on Sunday in the second game of its Canadian road trip.
 
The Railsplitters squeaked out a tense 63-61 win against a determined team from the University of Western Ontario.
 
Veteran guard Cornelius Taylor put the team on his shoulders in the second half and thwarted a furious comeback by Western, hitting some key buckets down the stretch.  Taylor finished with a game high 17 points and four rebounds.
 
LMU led by as many as 13 points at the end of the third quarter, but Western battled back to cut the deficit to two with 19 seconds remaining.  The teams traded misses in the final 15 seconds with Western missing for the final time at the buzzer.
 
"Credit them (Western), I thought they were extremely physical and pushed us out," commented head coach Josh Schertz.  "They really took us out of what we wanted to do.  We didn't do a good job of trying to hold ground and catch the ball in scoring areas."
 
The Railsplitters opened the contest fast, jumping out to a 7-0 lead just 2:45 into the contest.  LMU increased its lead to 16-4 at the five-minute mark of the first quarter and ended the stanza with a 24-15 advantage.
 
LMU built its biggest lead in the second quarter with Taylor and Kamaran Calhoun providing the offense and Steven Perriere hitting the boards for seven of his game leading eight rebounds.
 
LMU built its biggest lead in the third quarter, coasting out to a 13-point spread.  However, Western would not go away.  The home team cut the lead to seven with six minutes remaining and further closed the gap to 63-59 with a minute remaining.  LMU's final points came on a couple of free throws from Calhoun.
 
"Yesterday we buried a bunch of shots and that just wasn't the case today," said Schertz.  "This was good for us.  We found out we are probably not as good as we were offensively yesterday and not as bad as we were defensively today.  We are probably somewhere in between.
 
"We need to get better at the things we need to control.  We need to take care of the ball and maximize our shots."
 
The Railsplitters shot 5 for 31 from three-point range and only 11 for 21 from the free throw line. The team also struggled with ball possession, turning the ball over 11 times in the first half and exceeding 20 turnovers for the game.
 
In addition to Taylor's 17-point effort, Calhoun contributed 10 points and six rebounds and Cameron Henry chipped in with 7 points and three boards.