With six seconds left and the Jumbos trailing by one against Clark, in danger of snapping a two game winning streak, senior tri-captain Reggie Stovell tipped in a missed shot to give the Jumbos a 64-63 victory.
The win marked the third in a row for the Jumbos, all of them on the road, who now stand at 4-3.
"We played really well," sophomore Brian Kumf said. "We started off leading by 17 at one point in the first. We let them get back in it a little bit. We lost our composure a little bit, but Reggie hit a game winning shot, his second in the last three games."
Clark looked to be in command of the game, as junior Tim Dutille settled in at the free throw line with the Cougars already leading 63-62.
Dutille, who had made 10 of 11 free throws in the game to score a game-high 24 points, had the opportunity to give the Cougars a three-point lead with just 16 seconds left.
But Dutille missed both free throws and gave the Jumbos a chance to win with just a two-pointer.
"[Duttille missing those free throws] was huge," Kumf said. "It gave us new life. Not trying to tie, we could basically win it with a bucket."
It appeared the Jumbos would not take advantage of that new life, when sophomore David Shepherd's driving shot clanked off the backboard, but Stovell was right there to put it back in.
"Shepherd drove to the basket trying to make something happen and the ball hit off the backboard," Kumf said. "[Stovell] was right behind him to put it back. It was purely a hustle play."
Early in the game, it did not appear that the Jumbos would need any late-game heroics to cruise by the Cougars, as Tufts amassed a 13-point halftime lead.
Clark was not done, however, outscoring Tufts 28-16 over the first 13 minutes of the second half.
After a Shepherd three-pointer with 4:19 left gave the Jumbos a four-point lead, the Cougars proved resilient, answering with a three-pointer of their own to trigger a 6-0 run that would give them a 61-59 lead to set up a dramatic finish.
Stovell led the Jumbos with 15 points, and while his six rebounds were well below his season average of 11.3 entering the game, the last rebound was the one that mattered most.
He was aided by Shepherd who played all 40 minutes and added 14 points.
The win gave the Jumbos three wins in a row, all coming on the road against NEWMAC opponents.
The Jumbos are 4-1 on the road this year, a marked improvement over the 1-13 road record they compiled last year.
"It's a confidence thing," Kumf said. "We got one and then we realized we could do it. We're just coming into games with a swagger and coming in as a team."
Two days earlier, the Jumbos triumphed over Babson College, 77-69.
"We played really well," Kumf said. "[The Babson game] was our best game of the season. They're a tough team. In the first, they really stuck it to us defensively, but in the second half, we played really well."
It was a tale of two halves for Tufts, as Babson outscored the Jumbos 28-23 in the first half, leading by as much as 11 points at some moments.
Coming out in the second half, Babson looked ready to do more of the same, hitting a layup just six seconds into the half and extending the lead to 30-23.
From that point on, the Jumbos went on a 26-4 run, turning a seven-point deficit into a 15-point lead in just over 10 minutes of basketball.
During the torrid stretch, seven different Jumbos scored points and Stovell, Kumf and freshman Ryan O'Keefe poured in five points each.
The run was illustrative of a half in which the Jumbos scored 54 points, shot 60.7 percent from the field and hit 18 of 20 free throws. The successful free throws proved to be one of the deciding factors in the game.
"Those are easy baskets," Kumf said. "They are called free throws for a reason. You've got to hit them. A lot of games this year, we've been missing free throws and that's been the reason we've lost."
The Beavers clawed back from the 49-34 deficit eventually cutting the lead to 57-51 with 6:10 remaining.
While the Jumbo lead would swell back up to 12 with 3:09 left, the Beavers went on a 13-6 run to cut the lead to just 73-69 with 29 seconds left.
Shepherd hit two free throws with 28 seconds left to ice the game for the Jumbos. The point guard was 10 of 11 from the line and scored 14 of his team-high 17 points in the second half. He added seven rebounds in the game.
Stovell added 16 points and nine rebounds. Junior Brian Fitzgerald, making his second start of the season at center, pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds as the Jumbos gathered a rebound advantage of 19 over the Beavers.
The Jumbos will return home tomorrow night to take on Plymouth State at 7 p.m.
"It's a big game," Kumf said. "They beat us pretty big last year. They lost four starters, but it's still a big game. We really want to get a 'W' at home."
