PANAMA CITY, Fla – Faulkner upended the No. 11 team in the country in the second round of the Battle at the Beach Saturday night when C.J. Williamson (SO/Guntersville, Ala.)'s buzzer-beater at the end of regulation put the Eagles over LSU-Alexandria 90-88. The Generals erased a six-point deficit with 20 seconds to play with a pair of threes from Brandon Ellis and Jordan Adebutu. With three seconds remaining and the game tied at 88, Garrett Sanderson (JR/Montgomery, Ala.) inbounded the ball from underneath his own basket. The guard baseball passed it ahead to the LSUA free throw line where Milan Skundric (SR/Negotin, Serbia) tipped it out to Williamson. The sophomore transfer took a rainbow 16-foot baseline jumper that flirted with the rafters of Billy Harrison Field House before dropping through the net for the win.

The sequence proved a fitting culmination for what was an evenly played game from start to finish. The contest featured nine lead changes and solid play throughout. LSUA led by as many as eight with 3:09 to play in the first half before Faulkner started to chip away at the deficit. Eagle senior C.J. Jones (SR/Port Richey, Fla.) knocked down a three with 1:23 left in the half to cut it to four before repeating the feat at the halftime horn to leave LSUA up 46-42.

Jones came out of the locker room just as hot, dropping a three for the opening bucket of the second half to ignite a Faulkner run. He and Sanderson teamed to outscore the Generals 22-8 during the first six minutes of the period and give the Eagles their largest lead of the game at 10 with 14:22 to play.

The Generals came right back with an 11-0 run including a person 9-0 stretch by Anthony Stove to put LSUA back on top. Jones lifted his team once more at the 10:48 mark with a pair of free throws to put Faulkner up one.

Ellis made a three with 6:31 to play to put the Generals up again before Stove hit one of his own to stretch the advantage to four. Undaunted, Faulkner battled from behind again. Skundric hit a shot at the 4:59 mark to narrow it to 77-75 before scoring again 35 seconds later to tie the game. Williamson then dropped two free throws to give the Eagles the lead again. After Skundric proved true again with 3:07 to play, Sanderson completed the 10-0 run with a shot with 2:42 to play. Skundric then had a personal 4-0 stretch to move the Faulkner run to 14-2 and put the Eagles up by eight. Ellis hit a three with 50 seconds remaining to set off the game's final sequence.

The game proved competitive in virtually every statistical category. Each team finished with 35 rebounds. Faulkner hit 13 three-pointers while LSU-Alexandria had 17. The Egnerals shot 50.8 percent from the floor and 47.2 percent from deep. Faulkner shot 46.9 percent from the floor and 38.2 percent from three. The Eagles also shot a blistering 17 of 21 from the free throw line in the victory.

Stove and Ellis did most of the damage for the Generals. Stove finished with 26 points while Ellis had 21. Chris Vickers added 11 for LSU-A.

Skundric scored 29 off the bench to lead Faulkner in a game that also saw him grabbed nine rebounds to go along with four assists and two steals. Jones notched 24 points and five rebounds for the Eagles. Sanderson had 15 points and six boards while Williamson had 15 points and five rebounds.

Faulkner (8-2) will play in the championship round of the inaugural Battle at the Beach Sunday at Billy Harrison Field House on the campus of Gulf Coast State College. The Eagles will face the winner of Lindsey Wilson and Voorhees.