FAIRFIELD, Conn. – The Saint Francis men's basketball team struggled out of the gate and never recovered as Sacred Heart handed the Red Flash a 76-60 defeat on Thursday night at the Pitt Center.
The Pioneers hit 11 of their first 13 field goal attempts in opening a 25-2 margin less than eight minutes into the game. Saint Francis (4-10, 1-3 NEC) hit just 4-of-26 attempts from the field in the first half, and went into the break with a 39-16 deficit.
Four players registered double digit points for the Red Flash, paced by senior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring) with 13 points. Senior Marquis Ford (St. Petersburg, FL /St. Petersburg) (St. Petersburg, Fla. / St. Petersburg) tallied 12 points, while senior Grant Surprenant (Palatine, IL /Palatine) (Palatine, Ill. / Palatine) and junior Kurt Hoffman (Johnstown, PA /Greater Johnstown ) (Johnstown, Pa. / Johnstown) added 10 points each. Hoffman tied his career high with 10 points.
Senior Joey Henley had a career night for the Pioneers. He hit 12-of-13 field goal attempts for 25 points to go with six rebounds. Ryan Litke and Corey Hassan had 14 points each, and Ryon Howard and Chauncey Hardy had 10 points each.
The Red Flash will try to bounce back with a 2 p.m. contest on Saturday at Quinnipiac. Saint Francis dropped its fifth straight game to fall to 4-10 overall, and 1-3 in the Northeast Conference.
Sloppy play in the first eight minutes led to several easy buckets for Sacred Heart, which improved to 5-9 overall and 3-2 in the NEC.
Litke opened the game with a 3-pointer only to see Hoffman make a layup to cut it to 3-2 48 seconds into the game. But SFU missed its next nine field goal attempts, while the Pioneers made 10-of-11 in going on a 22-0 run to make it 25-2 with 12:18 to go in the half.
The Red Flash stopped the bleeding with a pair of Hoffman and Kyle Jackson (Bolingbrook, IL /Plainfield Central ) (Bolingbrook, Ill. / Plainfield Central) and a Ford 3-pointer during a 7-0 run to cut it to 25-9. However, Sacred Heart closed the half on a 14-7 run in holding SFU to its lowest point total for a half this season.
But Saint Francis came out of the locker room with a spirited second half effort, and was able to get the game as close as eight points with 2:49 remaining in the game. However, junior Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy), who played just four minutes in the first half with foul trouble, fouled out of the game just 25 seconds later with the Red Flash applying pressure.
Litke hit a 3-pointer on the in-bounds play following the foul to open an 11-point lead, 66-55, and put the game out of reach.
SFU shot 48.3 percent (14-of-29) in the second half, and nailed 17-of-18 free throw attempts in the game (94.4 percent). The Red Flash lead the NEC with a 77.6 free throw percentage.
Head Coach Don Friday Postgame Quotes:
Opening Statement:
“We really came out in the first half – I can't put a finger on it, ut it wasn't by design to get down by 25-2. You talk about when things snowball. The kids were trying so hard. We had so many easy, when I say easy I mean contested looks at the basket in the paint and so many balls rolling off that rim. As that happened the first couple times, I thought our kids got tighter and tighter. We tried to press, but as that was going on we got paralyzed on the defensive end. That was really, really disappointing. The difference in this game, if you take that out of it, would be the poor offense by us and then a lot of breakouts by Henley and those guys on those jail breaks. That's something that is just unacceptable. I'm really disappointed as a coaching staff that we didn't have our kids in a better position to take better care of that tonight. And believe me, we have one day here to prepare for Quinnipiac, we'll have to give better concentration to that.”
Hot shooting by Sacred Heart in first half:
“They were phenomenal because a lot of that was easy buckets off of transition and they were running right down the middle of the lane. But no excuses, give Sacred Heart credit. I don't want to say that they confused us, but their switches we weren't really comfortable. There wasn't a rhythm to our squad. At halftime we're down big. Coming in here, we talked about winning the first five minutes. We've got to find out why we aren't winning the first five minutes in some of these games. Again, that falls back on our staff. We've got to put our kids in a position where they are going to be successful. They are going to compete, and they are going to represent Saint Francis with class.”
