LORETTO, Pa. -- Junior Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist) had his third double-double of the season, and senior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring) tallied a season-high 18 points, to lead the Saint Francis men's basketball team to a 69-65 victory in front of a regionally televised audience on Saturday afternoon at DeGol Arena.
It marked the first career Northeast Conference victory for head coach Don Friday, and the Red Flash have now won four of their last six games to improve to 4-5 overall, and 1-1 in the NEC. SFU will now have off for eight days before returning to action with a 7 p.m. contest on Dec. 14, at Iona.
The win was the fifth straight over SFC for the Red Flash.
Sweetney had 19 points and 11 rebounds for his 10th career double-double. He scored his 800th career point in the first half, and added two steals and one assist in the game. Nelson had five assists and two rebounds, and made 6-of-10 field goals. Senior Marquis Ford (St. Petersburg, FL /St. Petersburg) (St. Petersburg, Fla. / St. Petersburg) made 5-of-10 from the field and had 12 points, three assists and two rebounds, and junior Kurt Hoffman (Johnstown, PA /Greater Johnstown ) (Johnstown, Pa. / Johnstown) pulled down a career high nine rebounds (five offensive boards) to go with four points.
Kayode Ayeni paced the Terriers with 21 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks, while Ricky Cadell and Rocco Rubino added 14 points apiece.
St. Francis-NY took a 33-27 lead into halftime behind 46.2 percent shooting in the first half. Ford came out of the locker room to hit a jumper to cut the lead to four. But the Terriers took their biggest lead of the game when John Gooden made 1-of-2 free throws followed by a Stefan Perunicic 3-pointer to make it 37-29 with 18:39 remaining in the game.
However, Saint Francis reeled off 10 straight points to take a 39-37 lead. The Red Flash held St. Francis-NY without a field goal for 4 minutes, 30 seconds during the run. The teams traded points over the next two minutes and were locked in a 43-43 tie when Sweetney made a layup to spark a 6-0 run and give SFU the lead for good with 11:26 left in the game.
The Terriers pulled to within three points on two occasions, but a pair of Sweetney buckets and a Ford layup finished another 6-0 run for Saint Francis for a 61-52 lead with 2:34 to play.
St. Francis-NY responded with an 8-3 run to pull within 64-60 with 23 seconds remaining, but Nelson hit a pair of free throws with 21 seconds left to make it 66-60.
Cadell raced to the other end for a quick layup with 13 seconds to go, but Nelson again made two free throws with 13 seconds still on the clock to make it 68-62. Rubino made a 3-pointer with seven seconds remaining to cut the lead to 68-65, but Nelson made the front end of two free throws to put the game out of reach at 69-65 with six seconds to play.
Junior Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) played just 24 minutes, but contributed six points, six rebounds, one block and one steal for the Red Flash. Saint Francis shot 51.6 percent (16-of-31) in the second half, and 43.9 percent for the game.
SFU outrebounded St. Francis-NY 39-32, and had 14 offensive rebounds. The game featured six ties and eight lead changes.
St. Francis-NY Head Coach Brian Nash
“Second 20 minutes, I thought we just went in the tank defensively. We didn't guard dribble penetration well, and then they killed us on the offensive glass. I thought those two things were the biggest. I know we take a lot of threes, but we still scored enough points and we had a chance to win. I thought we lost the game on the defensive end.”
Was the intensity there?
“That's what I challenged our guys about right now. We had an opportunity to make this a great trip, and we had an opportunity to be 2-0 for a month. We still got a lot of young guys on the floor playing minutes that have to learn that you have to take games. Their older guys took the game. Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) and Sweetney took over the game. They either scored layups or missed 3-pointers and got the offensive rebound. That's what it seemed like in the last 12 or 13 minutes of the game.”
“They caused us so many cover downs and rotations on our defense that we didn't cover down and play them physically enough.”
You were up by eight, and they went on a run. Was that your defense or their offense?
“When you are making shots, it's easy to have energy. That's what I told our guys. The three is like a drug for us right now. We get energized by it. When we're not making it, we still have to find a way to play. On the ball defense and rebounding are the biggest keys for us.”
Was it a situation where you guys weren't making the shots, or did Saint Francis' defense get that much better?
“I think Stefan struggled. He's learning how to play. He thinks every catch has to be a shot right now. The one thing that he's struggling with right now is he has to start penetrating and making plays for other guys when he's getting so crowded defensively. We had a couple chances to score some inside buckets with some post play. That's the one thing that has to step up for us is that somebody has to start scoring inside because people are going to start defending the three. So they are going to spread us out.”
Head Coach Don Friday:
(Opening Statement)
“I'm very proud of the way our kids came back here today, and opened our second half of a Northeast Conference weekend double header. It's a week right now where we look at it as coaches and I think as fans that it's all about basketball, and it's about raising to the challenge. But it's also final exams week here right now. I've done this now for 19 years. I know it's always a stressful week. I know it's an extremely stressful week. But for our kids, and when you are balancing that on part of it, it's tough. Our kids had some expectations going into Thursday night's game, and I know we were all disappointed. But to come back here today (the way we did). We talk about those little battles with our program, and I think today was one of those small battles that we won. There might have been some doubters the other night, and there might have been some doubters today in the warm-up line. But we willed our way. The first half, we were in a very up tempo flow where it was very loose and a lot of quick shots and not a lot of discipline by us. In the second half, I got their attention at halftime, and I thought our kids came back out here and we played with purpose. We spread the floor, keep the ball off the deck and not beat it to death. Drive it, kick it, drive it, kick it, punch it in, punch it out and play balanced, and that's the way we have to play.”
What did you do at halftime to get their attention?
“Well we discussed a couple things. We discussed about not standing around in the perimeter and (being a spectator). We talked about back screening. We talked about slipping, and we also talked about not leaving our feet and allowing 3-point shooters to get us in the air, and then letting them dribble drive to kick it out to other 3-point shooters with their feet set. That was basically the thrust of our conversation.”
They were hitting 3's in the first half. Was that an improvement in your defense?
“First of all, I have known coach Brian Nash for a long time, and I think he's done a heck of a job there. He's gotten some pretty good players. That was no mistake what they did on Thursday night at Robert Morris, so they had our full attention. But I did feel that some of their shots, now they did hit some shots you just can't do anything about. Players made plays. But I thought there were a couple of times where we were very undisciplined, where they showed up fakes, especially No. 32, now as we fly out there and leave our feet and he dribble drives, your natural instinct is to protect the basket. Now they were kicking up, and the kid Rubino, 45, he got us for a couple, and a couple times our hands were at our side. I have been on the other side of that too, when you are relying on a lot of threes, and people are chasing you, that's one thing. But when you have to sit down and play 22 to 25 seconds on the defensive end, and every pass has a consequence if you don't play hard, that wears you down. It's easy if you know you have a big fellow inside that you can go to and you can rely on to score, but if you're relying on jumpers and they aren't going (in) as you start to get tired. Our system, we try to stay away from that.”
What happened in the second half?
“I think our defense got that much better. I'd be willing to bet that if we looked at tape and we were to put a stop watch on our possessions, I bet our possessions in the first half, we had a lot of eight to 14 second possessions where they didn't have to guard us. Second half, I bet you we had a lot of possessions in the 22 to 26 second range where we had two good stretches. We may have had an inside touch, or a hard dribble drive for a kick, and I think we settled down. That was a big part of it.”
