LORETTO, Pa. – Junior Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist) scored 19 points and senior Marquis Ford (St. Petersburg, FL /St. Petersburg) (St. Petersburg, Fla. / St. Petersburg) tallied 16, but the Saint Francis men's basketball team never recovered from an 18-0 Central Connecticut State first half run in a 71-61 defeat on Saturday at DeGol Arena.
The Red Flash fell to 4-13 overall, and 1-6 in the Northeast Conference, with their eighth straight defeat. SFU will be back in action with a 7 p.m. game at Fairleigh Dickinson on Thursday night.
Sweetney made 6-of-10 field goal attempts for 19 points to go with six rebounds, Ford had 16 points, five rebounds, three assists and a steal, and senior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring) fell one point shy of his first career double-double. Nelson had nine points, 10 assists and tied a career high with four steals.
Nelson now has 311 career assists, which is 12 shy of tying Garrett Farha (2004-06) and Don Graham (1975-79) for sixth on the school's all-time list.
Four players finished in double digit scoring for the Blue Devils. Ken Horton had a team-high 20 points, while Marcus Palmer had 15, Joe Seymore added 14 and Robby Ptacek added 13.
The Red Flash led 18-7 with 10:19 remaining in the first half when the Blue Devils offense woke up. Up until that mark, CCSU was 1-of-5 from the field with seven turnovers. However, Saint Francis got into foul trouble with the Blue Devils in the double bonus with 8:56 remaining in the half, and it led to some better looks for CCSU during their run. Robby Ptacek made a pair of free throws, and then alternated buckets with Tamir Johnson to turn an 11-point deficit into an 18-15 game in a span of 1:32.
The Blue Devils continued to put the pressure on and led 25-18 when Ford stopped the bleeding with a layup with 2:21 to go in the half. But the damage was done and CCSU finished the first half on a 26-4 run to take a 33-22 lead into the break.
The Blue Devils opened the second half with a 7-1 run to take their biggest lead of the game. Leading 51-34 with 11:26 to, Saint Francis charged to within eight points with a 9-0 run, capped by a 3-pointer off the hands of senior Grant Surprenant (Palatine, IL /Palatine) (Palatine, Ill. / Palatine) to make it 51-43 with 8:06 remaining. However, Joe Seymore came down and answered with a 3-pointer of his own to spark a 7-0 run to put the game out of reach at 58-43 with 6:05 left.
SFU pulled to within seven points, 62-55, with 1:55 remaining, but CCSU made 6-of-7 from the foul line in the final 1:44 to ice the victory.
The Red Flash jumped out to a lead early in the game with great defense and good shot selection. Leading 7-5, they went on a 9-0 run that started with a great pass from Nelson to Sweetney for an easy layup. Coming back down the floor, Nelson stole the ball and fed to Sweetney for another fast-break layup and a traditional 3-point play to make it 12-5. Sweetney made it seven straight points by creating his own shot with a terrific cross over and pull-up jumper to make it 14-5. Junior Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) completed the run with a hook shot to pull the Flash ahead 16-5 with 10:45 remaining in the first half.
Game Notes: Seven of CCSU's first nine points were scored at the foul line; The Blue Devils had one field goal through the first 10 minutes; Senior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) had 10 assists, marking the second time in his career with 10 or more assists; the Red Flash shot 52.5 percent from the field, marking the first time in the past 11 games they have shot over 50.0 percent; The Blue Devils shot 53.7 percent, making it six consecutive SFU opponents who have shot over 50.0 percent.
Head coach Don Friday:
Opening Statement
“I thought tonight that we came out with great energy and played really well out of the gates. We got into some foul trouble early on and had some combinations that we had to go to with personnel. We got into a spot where we lost some offensive rhythm, and certainly as we did that we were doing a good job defensively scrapping. Then they started to salt away some points, and they got themselves to the free throw line. We didn't do a good job of responding. But despite some of that adversity and with us having some different lineups and matchups out there, I thought our kids kept our composure in the sense that it would have been real easy for them to lose it and go off the edge of the cliff. I really thought our kids hung in there.”
