PITTSBURGH (Feb. 8) -- The Thiel College men's basketball team dropped a Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) matchup with conference-leading Chatham University 80-63 Saturday afternoon at the Athletic and Fitness Center in Pittsburgh.

The Tomcats drop to 7-14 (6-11) while the Cougars rise to 19-3 (16-1) and retain sole possession of first-place in the PAC.

Trailing 17-15 in the first half, Anthony Henderson II (Miramar, Fla./Somerset Academy) connected on a bucket to spearhead a 14-4 Thiel run over 5:59 to pull ahead 29-21 with 5:06 left in the first half. Five Tomcats, including Rob Thomas (Pittsburgh, Pa./Penn Hills) (3 points) and Das Sanders (Dallas, Texas/Fort Worth Christian) (2) collected at least 2 points in the stretch.

Thomas posted a game-high-tying 19 points on 7-of-16 and 4-of-5 from the line to go with a game- and career-high four blocks and five rebounds. 

Sanders notched his second straight solid performance with a career-high 15 points on 5-of-10 shooting and 5-of-6 at the line to go with a contest-high four offensive rebounds and a career-best-tying pair of blocks. In his past two games, Sanders has averaged 14 points and seven rebounds while shooting 50 percent (10 of 20) from the field. 

The Cougars closed the half on a 12-2 run to lead 33-31 at the break. Thiel was within 10 for the first 5 minutes of the second half, but Chatham pulled away and did not trail the rest of the night in route to the win.

Mike Brown (Clinton, Md./Gwynn Park) added 10 points, 5 of which came at the line (5-of-7), to go with a career-high-tying nine rebounds. Marlon Ellerbee (Temple Hills, Md./Oxon Hill) mirrored Brown with 10 points and nine boards while dishing out a team-leading five assists and swiping a game-best three steals.

As a team, Thiel was 23-of-29 at the charity stripe and held the edge on the glass (43-37).

Men's basketball returns to action Wednesday for a 7:30 p.m. PAC showdown at Grove City College.