On a Homecoming day full of emotion, the ETSU men’s basketball team made the plays it needed to make in the final minutes to outlast rival Appalachian State 62-58 in the 2009-10 season opener Saturday afternoon inside Memorial Center.
In a game that began with a memorial service for former ETSU center Seth Coy (Washington, Ind.), who tragically died in a car accident last summer, the Buccaneers were the recipients of a fortuitous intentional foul call with a minute left in regulation and capitalized at the foul line with five makes in six tries to pick up the victory. A crowd of 5,562 fans looked on as sophomore guard Adam Sollazzo (Tampa, Fla.) – who roomed with Coy and now wears his No. 43 jersey – hit two of those free tosses with 16.2 seconds left to help ice the game.
“I am so proud of our team right now,” said ETSU head coach Murry Bartow, whose team is beginning a stretch of five games in 11 days to open the season. “This was an incredibly emotional day with Seth’s Mom and all the family and friends who came down from Indiana. To win with our best player (Mike Smith) nursing an injury and only playing 10 minutes, and to have our starters only score 21 points – I don’t know that that’s ever happened in my career.”
Prior to the game, over 50 people from Coy’s hometown were on the Memorial Center floor, and Bartow presented his mother with a framed jersey.
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