WASHINGTON, D.C.—Sa'eed Nelson scored 26 points and grabbed seven rebounds, while Stacy Beckton Jr. added 15 points to lead American (14-12, 10-5 in the Patriot League) to a 71-62 Patriot League victory over Navy (13-13, 7-8) on Wednesday night at Bender Arena in Washington, D.C..

The win moves American into a second-place tie with Boston, who lost to Lafayette tonight, 61-59, while Navy falls into a sixth place tie with Bucknell.

Greg Summers led the Mids with 18 points and eight rebounds, while Evan Wieck was the only other Mid in double figures with 12 points.  Summers got to the line 15 times on Wednesday night, making 12.

Navy shot just 40 percent from the field (21-52) and 18 percent from behind the three-point arc (3-17).

"I thought we played really good basketball for the first 24 minutes," said Navy head coach Ed DeChellis. "Over the final 16 minutes we didn't play good enough on the defensive end to win the game. We gave up 48 points in the second half and let them shoot 54% from the field. We can't do that and expect to beat anybody.  We need to regroup and get ready for Army on Saturday."

Navy, which led 25-23 at the half, started the second half by outscoring the Eagles, 10-7, to take a 35-30 lead on a Greg Summer three-point play with 15:54 left. 

The Mids still led by three at 41-38 with 12:49 remaining when Wieck scored in the paint, but American would answer with an 11-2 run, with nine of those points coming from Nelson, over the next 4:47 to take a 49-43 lead with 8:02 remaining.

The Mids would cut the American lead to three points on three different occasions, the final time with 4:19 remaining when Summers made two free throws to make it 56-53, but American would close out the game on a 15-9 run to pull away for the nine point victory and a sweep of the season series. Nelson, who is making a strong case to be the Patriot League Player of the Year, once again was in the middle of a big American run scoring nine of their final 15 points.

Navy will travel to West Point on Saturday to take on the Black Knights in a doubleheader that will be televised nationally by CBS Sports Network starting with the women's game at 11 a.m. The men's game is expected to start at approximately 1:30 p.m.

Saturday's doubleheader is part of the Star series presented by USAA and is one of three Star competitions on Saturday. The Navy wrestling team will play host to Army on Saturday night at 7:30 PM at Alumni Hall.

Navy leads the Star series 10-3-1 over Army and needs two more Stars to clinch the season series.