COLUMBIA, S.C. – The Benedict College Tigers built a 19-point lead, then held off a late rally by Claflin to take a 68-64 victory in front of a near-capacity crowd in the Benjamin E. Mays HRC Arena and an ESPN3 audience.

The win improves Benedict to 18-7 overall and 11-6 in the SIAC. Claflin drops to 19-6 and 12-5 in the SIAC.

Cairo Brown led the Tigers with 16 points, while Jelani Watson-Gayle added 14 points, connecting on four 3-pointers. Brandon Morris, who had missed practice earlier in the week with the flu, scored 12 points in 24 minutes and had a team-high five assists.

Benedict led from the start, taking an early 11-2 lead, then building the lead to as much as 16 points and took a 35-19 advantage into the half.

A 3-pointer by Watson-Gayle and a jumper by Morris gave the Tigers a 46-27 lead with 15:27 left in the contest, their largest lead of the game. The Panthers stormed back and scored 14 unanswered points to cut the lead to 46-44 with 9:54 remaining. Morris ended nearly a seven-minute Benedict scoring draught with a layup. The Panthers tied the contest at 48-48 on a layup by Tondric Johnson.

Claflin took its first lead of the game, 62-61, with 1:04 left in the game after a jumper by Jaleel Charles. Brown came back on the other end and hit a big 3-pointer for the Tigers with 37 seconds left. Benedict hit their final four free throws in the final six seconds to hang on to the victory.

Charles led the Panthers with 17 points and a game-high eight rebounds.

Both teams shot nearly identical from the floor, with Claflin shooting 44.8 percent for the game and Benedict shot 44.7 percent. Two key differences were Benedict hit 9-of-18 3-point attempts (50 percent), while Claflin shot 4-of-16 (25 percent) from behind the arc. Also, the Tigers were able to get to the free-throw line, connecting on 17-of-24 (70.8 percent) from the line, while Claflin made just 13 attempts, and made eight (61.5 percent).

Benedict will play an exhibition game at Point University in West Point, Ga., on Tuesday, then travel to conference opponents Paine on Thursday and a rematch with Claflin in Orangeburg next Saturday. Benedict will wrap up the season with a home game on Feb. 21 against Concordia College of Alabama and will recognize their two seniors, Morris and Mike Udume.