LORETTO, Pa. (Feb. 23, 2008) – Junior forward Chris Berry (Seagoville, TX/Seagoville) (Seagoville, Texas / Seagoville) tied a career high with 25 points, but Mount St. Mary's built a big second half lead to defeat the Saint Francis men's basketball team, 72-61, in its home finale on Saturday night at DeGol Arena.

Berry made a season-high nine (9-for-9) free throws, and sank 8-of-13 attempts from the field. He also added six rebounds, two assists and a steal. Redshirt junior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring) tallied 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting, and junior Marquis Ford (St. Petersburg, FL /St. Petersburg) (St. Petersburg, Fla. / St. Petersburg) tallied eight points and four assists.

The Mountaineers were paced by four players in double digits, including a 6-for-7, 18-point effort off the bench from Jean Cajou. Jeremy Goode also had 18 points, while Chris Vann added 17 points and Markus Mitchell scored 10.

SFU will return to action 7 p.m. Thursday when they travel to Monmouth for a crucial Northeast Conference game. The Red Flash are still in at tie for eighth-place in the conference.

Playing without sophomore forward Kurt Hoffman (Johnstown, PA /Greater Johnstown ), the Red Flash struggled out of the gate. Mount St. Mary's shot 18-of-26 in the first half in building its lead. But Saint Francis would pull within striking distance several times.

Trailing 54-36, Nelson nailed a 3-pointer and then Berry converted a 3-point play to pull the Red Flash within 54-42 with 11:26 to go. However, the Mountaineers went on another 5-0 run to build their lead back to 17 points with 10:04 remaining.

After an SFU bucket, MSM went on another 5-0 run which concluded with a Cajou 3-pointer to build it to a 20-point advantage.

A Randy Spaid (Portage, PA /Portage) (Portage, Pa. / Portage) pulled SFU within 67-56, but the Red Flash allowed Vann to go back down the other end to put down a three to make it 70-56 with 3:05 remaining in the game and, after a failed Red Flash trey, Will Holland drove to the basket to put the game out of reach at 72-56 with 2:08 remaining.

Mount St. Mary's came out with the hot hand in the first half, building a lead as big as 19 points. Goode led the way with 13 points on 6-of-7 shooting in the first stanza, while Mitchell added 8 points by making 4-of-7 from the field. Saint Francis shot 36.8 percent in the half, but the Mountaineers shot 18-of-26 as a team for a 69.2 percent success rate.

Berry paced the Red Flash with 11 points and 4 rebounds on a 4-of-6 effort from the field. The Mountaineers held leading scorer Dieng to just one point in the first half.

Mount St. Mary's led the entire first half after Goode gave it a lead with a jumper just 17 seconds into the contest. Mitchell made it 4-0 on layup, and Ford came back down to hit his first 3-pointer of the game. The team's traded buckets over the next two minutes, and the Red Flash were able to tie it up at 10-10 on another Ford shot from long distance. However, the Mountaineers went on a 7-0 run to build a cushion. SFU got as close as three points on a Berry 3-point play at 19-16 with 7:29 remaining, but Mount St. Mary's went on an 11-0 run to go up 30-16 with 3:49 left in the half.

Spaid was 2-for-2 with five points, one rebound and one block in 12 minutes off the bench.

Postgame Comments:

Head coach Bobby Jones:

Opening remarks:

“Two things that really jump out tonight in looking at this ballgame – the 11 offensive rebounds for them I think is a very misleading stat because I venture to say that four or five of those came off missed free throws. Although they only out-rebounded us by one, I think that stat is somewhat misleading because the ones that they got off missed free throws really hurt us down the stretch. Their two guards really had an outstanding shooting night. Thirty-five points combined for Good and Vann, two very very good guards in this league. But I thought the glaring difference in the game was the 32 points in the paint, which really was 32 points in transition. Twenty-eight points off turnovers, those two stats kind of go hand in hand. In the first half, by our calculation, we had given up 19 points in transition and then we end the game giving up 32 points in transition. I think that's the overall glaring stat, which transition defense was one of our keys coming in, we didn't do a very good job in that area.”

What happened there?

“I just think sometimes when we are playing against aggressive people, or tough-minded people, sometimes maybe we start out a little bit intimidated. When they are able to get easy buckets, whether it be inside layups or whether it be run-outs in transition, I think sometimes we have a difficult time recovering from those starts. They are a good team. They are an aggressive team. We talked the last two days about taking them out of transition. They do a great job once you make a field goal. They run those two guards out down the sidelines. We've just got to have a little bit better focus and discipline in terms of following the scouting report in those areas. But I really thought that was the difference in the game. Those points in transition really hurt us tonight.”

MSM Head Coach Milan Brown

“We shot the ball really well. I was happy with our execution in the first half. I was trying to push the basketball up the court, and I think we were able to get some opportunities. The percentage was so high, we got a couple easy opportunities forced by our defense. It always helps when you get open three's or layups.”

You lead conference in field goal percentage defense. How do you do that?

“It's something that we really hang our hat on. We are a defensive-minded team. Our goal coming into the year was to be the best defensive team in the NEC – bottom line. Every night we just try to make teams have to work for every point they are going to score. We believe that if we can continue to make teams work to score, we are going to win a lot of games.”

You guys were not able to put the nail in the coffin. Why?

“Well we had a couple opportunities to (put the game out of reach) where we missed a few free throws. Then when we missed a few free throws, then they converted on the other end. We had a couple lapses in the second half defensively. We gave up a three and then Berry got in the post. That hurt us. Sometimes, with us a being a young basketball team, that's what we are trying to teach our guys, 'just continue to work.' The first thing I said when the game was over was 'it's not a 35 minute game. It's a 40 minute game. You need to stay focused, and we took advantage of that.'”