BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Navy men's basketball (9-7, 3-2 Patriot League) used a season-best 88 points behind career games from Daniel Deaver (Fr., Falls Church, Va.), Sean Yoder (Fr., Dublin, Pa.) and Luke Loehr (Jr., Inver Grover Heights, Minn.) to get back on the winning track and upend Lehigh (5-12, 2-3 Patriot League) on the road, 88-83. Deaver tallied a team-best 25 points and Luke Loehr scored 14 points all in the second half, which best set career-highs. In his homecoming, Yoder – growing up just 35 minutes away from Lehigh – scored a personal-best 19 points for the Midshipmen.
 
Navy's 88 points surpassed their previous season-high of 87 points against Washington College on Nov. 10. The last time Navy scored 88 points or more in a league contest came against Army on Jan. 21, 2017, when the Midshipmen tallied 96 points in the overtime game. Navy finished the game shooting 50.9 percent from the floor and 45.5 from beyond the arc, which are both the Midshipmen's best against a Division I opponent this season.
 
To start the game, Navy went on an 8-1 run, which was capped off by a bucket from Greg Summers (So., Ocoee, Fla.) with 16:36 to play in the opening half. Lehigh stormed back to grab the lead with a 9-0 run and Nic Lynch sparked the rally with the first eight points of the spurt.
 
The game of runs continued with a 13-2 Navy run to follow and Deaver paced the Midshipmen on the offensive end with 18 first-half points. The freshman started the run with back-to-back three-pointers and Yoder followed with a three of his own as Navy grabbed a 17-12 lead.
 
Navy's largest first-half lead came at 24-14 following a Summers free throw with 8:59 left in the period. Lehigh did not go away and pulled within two points twice over the final five minutes of the opening stanza. The Mountain Hawks used three-pointers on three-straight possessions to cut into their deficit. Navy withstood the late run from the Mountain Hawks and took a 38-34 lead over Lehigh into the locker room following a buzzer-beater from Jordan Cohen.
 
Navy shot 46.4 percent from the floor in the first 20 minutes and went 5-for-11 from beyond the arc. Lehigh finished 4-for-8 from three and shot 44.4 percent overall. 
 
After hitting the last-second shot to end the first half, Cohen continued his strong shooting in the second half making his first four shots from beyond the arc and cutting Navy's seven-point lead to three points with just over 13 minutes to play. Cohen was the spark for Lehigh in the second half after posting a game-high 28 points, with 21 points coming in the final 20 minutes.
 
The Midshipmen continued to click on the offensive end and stretched their lead back to 10 points after Yoder hit his third three of the night to give Navy a 73-63 edge with 7:27 to play. The Mountain Hawks did not back down as Navy's 10-point lead was its largest of the game. After falling behind by double digits for the second time, Lehigh made it a 73-69 contest with 4:19 to play, but only pulled within three points with under a minute to play. In the final minute of the game, the Midshipmen made seven free throws to hold off the Mountain Hawks and grab an 88-83 victory.
 
In the second half, Navy made 16-of-29 shots and matched its first-half output from beyond the arc going 5-for-11.
 
For the game, the Midshipmen finished with 19 bench points – all coming from Yoder – to set a new season-best against NCAA Division I opponents. Along with tallying a career-best 25 points, Deaver grabbed a personal-best nine rebounds just missing a double-double. 
 
"We talked about our bench needing to be better and I thought they stepped up tonight," head coach Ed DeChellis said. "Sean Yoder had a great night for us and Daniel Deaver had a great first half for us. Luke Loehr did some great things and he had been struggling. So it was nice to see him come out and play well.
 
"I am proud of our guys. We did not play very well defensively and that was disappointing, but we played really well offensively. It was one of those nights where both teams were getting and making shots, but we have to play better defensively on Saturday against Lafayette." 
 
Navy returns home on Saturday afternoon to host Lafayette at 4 p.m. inside Alumni Hall.