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ANNAPOLIS, Md. - A late scoring drought that included a number of miscues proved costly to Navy (10-17, 6-9 PL) in a 59-53 loss to Lehigh (15-11, 9-6 PL) on Wednesday evening at Alumni Hall. Navy is in a three-way tie for seventh place with three games remaining on the conference schedule.

Navy used a 9-0 run to go ahead of Lehigh 46-42 with 7:32 remaining in the second half, but Navy would come up empty on its next nine possessions, while Lehigh took advantage with a 10-0 run over the seven minute span to take control of the game.

"The kids played hard and played great defense," said head coach Ed DeChellis. "But we didn't perform very well tonight offensively. I thought defensively we were pretty good in the first half, but then in the second half they drove on us and we kept fouling them. We turned the ball over foolishly at really critical times and we couldn't score."

Worth Smith led Navy with a game-high 19 points and also grabbed five rebounds. Junior guard Tilman Dunbar had 13 points, six assists and four rebounds.

After Lehigh scored the game's first bucket, Navy reeled off a 10-0 run over the next 6:44, beginning with a 3-pointer by sophomore guard Zach Fong and ending with three points from sophomore Edward Alade.

Navy later pushed its lead to 17-8 after seven straight points from Smith. Lehigh cut the lead to 19-15, but back-to-back 3-pointers by freshman Bryce Dulin and Smith gave Navy its largest lead of the game at 25-15. However, Lehigh cut the halftime margin to 26-20 after Jesse Chuku hit a 3-pointer with two seconds left in the half.

The Mountain Hawks opened the second half on an 11-2 run that saw Tim Kempton convert a three-point play and then Kahron Ross and Austin Price bury 3-pointers to give the visitors a 29-28 lead. Fong would tie the game at 31-31 with a 3-pointer, but Lehigh went on a 7-0 run to take a 40-33 lead.

Smith broke the run with a jumper and then Dunbar found Alade for an easy dunk. After a Kempton layup, Smith hit a 3-pointer and then after a Will Kelly block, freshman Shawn Anderson finished a spinning fast-break layup. Kelly made a hook shot and then Dunbar took advantage of a careless Lehigh turnover with a fast-break layup to cap an 11-2 run to give Navy a 46-42 lead with 7:32 remaining in the second half.

That's when Navy hit its dry spell, coming up empty on its next nine possessions as Lehigh went on a 10-0 run to retake the lead. Navy missed the front end of two one-and-one free throw chances and committed three turnovers during the stretch. Navy finally scored when Dunbar made a free throw, which was 6:56 after his fast-break layup.

Navy shot 35 percent (19-of-54) from the floor, while Lehigh was victorious shooting just 34 percent (17-of-50). Lehigh made up for its poor shooting by scoring 17 second-chance points off of 15 offensive rebounds and also added 17 points off of Navy's 15 turnovers.

Lehigh also made 20-of-25 free throws, while Navy was just 9-of-15 from the line.

Ross led the Mountain Hawks with 13 points, while Kempton and Chuku each had 12. For Navy, Kelly blocked four shots and had four rebounds, while Anderson had a season-high eight rebounds.

Lehigh extends its winning streak against Navy to 11 games.

Navy will next host Holy Cross on Sunday at 12 noon on Senior Day.