COLUMBIA, S.C. – DeShawn Graham grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on the putback with less than a second to play to lift the Benedict College Tigers to their first victory of the year, 83-81 over Virginia Union University on Saturday afternoon in the Benjamin E. Mays HRC Arena.

With the score tied, Davante Wiltshire missed a 3-pointer. Graham was able to tip in the missed shot for the Tigers. Benedict improves to 1-8 on the season. Virginia Union, the defending CIAA champions, drop to 3-6 overall.

The Panthers had as much as an eight-point lead, 66-58, in the second half. The Tigers scored the next nine points to take a 67-66 lead with 6:29 left to play. Virginia Union pushed the lead back to 76-71 with 3:21 remaining. Romello Jones answered with a 3-pointer with 3:03 remaining. Jones led the Tigers with a game-high 27 points and 10 rebounds, both season-highs.

After a Virginia Union free throw, Jones scored a layup to make it 77-76 with 2:26 on the clock. The Panthers scored after an offensive rebound for a 79-76 lead with 1:27 left. Jones hit a big 3-pointer with 1:21 left to play to tie the game. An offensive foul by the Panthers turned the ball back to Benedict, where Wiltshire gave Benedict an 81-79 lead with a driving layup.

Virginia Union shot 49.3 percent (35-of-71) compared to 40.6 percent (28-of-69) for the Tigers. The Panthers had a distinctive size advantage and outrebounded the Tigers 50-31 and outscored the Tigers 58-30 in the paint. The Tigers had the advantage from 3-point range, making 10-of-27 attempts (37 percent), while Virginia Union made just three 3-pointers (3-of-12). Benedict also had the advantage at the free-throw line, going 17-of-20 (85 percent), while Virginia Union was 8-of-15 (53.3 percent).

Graham added 19 points, while Kelvin Omojola added 14 points. Jalen Shuman had 11 points in his season debut.

Raemaad Wright led the Panthers with 21 points and 14 rebounds. Will Jenkins added 19 points and 12 rebounds.

The Tigers have an exhibition game against Point University on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in their last home game before the Christmas break.