YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (Nov. 29, 2008) -- Junior Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) recorded his first career double-double to lead four Saint Francis players in double-digit scoring as the Red Flash men's basketball team defeated Youngstown State 66-65 on Saturday night at the Beeghly Center.
SFU snapped a six-game road losing streak by shooting a season-best 51.0 percent from the field. The Red Flash improved to 2-4 on the year, and will look to carry the momentum of their first road win of the season into a 7 p.m. Monday contest at Morgan State.
Jukic made 7-of-12 field goal attempts for 15 points and a career-high 11 rebounds to go with one block. Senior Grant Surprenant (Palatine, IL /Palatine) (Palatine, Ill. / Palatine) had his best shooting performance of the season in going 5-of-8 from the field, 4-of-6 from long distance, for a season-high 14 points. Senior Marquis Ford (St. Petersburg, FL /St. Petersburg) (St. Petersburg, Fla. / St. Petersburg) had 12 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists, and was 5-of-7 from the field, and junior Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist) had 11 points and 4 rebounds in also draining 5-of-7 from the field.
Youngstown State made 38.3 percent of its field goal attempts, and was paced by sophomore Vytas Sulskis with 22 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
Sulskis put a scare into Saint Francis by banking a 3-pointer off the glass with 26.2 seconds remaining to pull the Penguins within one point, 66-65. The final 26 ticks were furious. Ford missed the front end of a one-and-one with 23.8 seconds remaining, but Sweetney came down with the rebound and immediately got fouled. He also missed the front end of a one-and-one with 20.4 seconds left. Sirlester Martin missed a 3-pointer with 11 seconds remaining, and Kelvin Bright missed a 16-footer with four seconds left, as the ball rolled out of bounds with no time remaining.
The officials looked at the replay to see if there should have been time left on the clock as the ball rolled over the out of bounds line. However, replays could not confirm time remaining on the clock to give the Red Flash a 66-65 win.
Saint Francis fell behind very early as the Penguins held their biggest lead of the game,11-7, with 13:15 to go in the first half. Trailing 17-16 with 8:12 left in the first half, Sweetney nailed a 3-pointer to give the Red Flash the lead for good.
SFU went on to build a 14 point lead in the first half, 38-24, with 1:45 remaining. Youngstown State (1-4) cut it to nine, 40-31, at the break.
The Penguins chipped away the entire second half, but couldn't overcome the deficit.
SFU outrebounded the Penguins, 34-32, and had a season-best 16-to-12 assist-to-turnover ratio. Senior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring) had nine points, three rebounds, five assists and two steals.
Game Notes: Marquis Ford (St. Petersburg, FL /St. Petersburg) scored his 600th career point and finished the game with 608… Jukic's 64 points this season are already a career high. His previous best was 49 points last season.
Head Coach Don Friday Postgame Quotes:
“I'm really proud of our kids. A couple things, I want to say that we were 3-for-3 out of timeouts. We got exactly what we wanted. Set the rack up and sent it right down broadway. We're getting better. As I told you, you can't always be judged by wins and losses, but you know what, tonight we were the better team. Our kids hung in there. We had poise. Even though those kids, we had a couple one-on-ones down the stretch that didn't fall. Kids in the timeout were saying, 'now we will get a stop on defense.' And that's a great sign. That's a sign that our kids are hanging in there. We paid the dues. Tonight, the right team came out on top.”
Was there something in your mind that really stood out?
“I thought in the first half that we were a little tentative early on, but we had a good flow going into halftime. Even though that kid banked in that long shot, I thought we had some good looks. Grant Surprenant (Palatine, IL /Palatine) came in and really stretched the floor, and I think people had to account for him. What I told our kids at halftime was a couple things. First thing, they are probably going to double team Mislav (Jukic), which he ended up with a pretty good night and went 7-of-12 from the floor. Next, we talked about the fact that we didn't shoot a lot of foul shots in the first half, and we were afraid we hadn't had the chance to get there. We shot like 60 percent from the floor (in the first half) and sometimes that is going to level out. Not that we were thinking negatively, but we said 'guys, we have to have a focus to get that ball to the foul line.' So I thought we got a good combination of driving. But on the other end, but this game was won on the defensive end. We hung in there. We hung in there again, and we bent but didn't break. My hats off to my kids. In our little match-up defense, they are doing a good job there. We are going to enjoy this going home on the bus tonight.”
