LORETTO, Pa. (Nov. 25, 2009) – The Saint Francis men's basketball team rallied from a 12-point second half deficit to tie visiting Lehigh, but the Mountain Hawks answered with a 10-0 run to defeat the Red Flash 76-67 in non-conference action on Wednesday night at DeGol Arena.
Junior Cedric Latimer (Los Angeles, CA /Windward) (Los Angeles, Calif. / Windward) and freshman Umar Shannon (Atlantic City, N.J. / Atlantic City) had a team-high 14 points, while senior Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist) had 11 points and eight rebounds.
Freshman C.J. McCollum had a game-high 20 points for Lehigh, and was 10-of-10 from the foul line. Holden Greiner came off the bench for 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting.
Saint Francis dropped its fourth straight game to fall to 1-4, and will return to action when it travels to Ohio State for a 5:30 p.m. tipoff on Saturday. That game will be televised live by the Big Ten Network.
Lehigh, which was picked to finish second in the Patriot League improved to 3-2 on the season.
The Mountain Hawks took a 35-30 lead into halftime and both teams came out firing at a furious pace over the first five minutes of the second half. Lehigh made seven of its first eight field goal attempts during the span, while SFU made its first five attempts from the field. However, the Mountain Hawks made fewer mistakes in growing their lead to 10 points, 52-42, with 15:38 remaining.
After Lehigh made it 58-46 with 13:21 to go, Saint Francis got a pair of 3-pointers from Shannon and freshman Austin Fowler (Farmington Hills, MI /Birmingham Brother Rice ) (Farmington Hills, Mich. / Birmingham Brother Rice) to cut the lead to six. Following a pair of free throws from McCollum, Saint Francis scored eight straight points on a layup by senior Kurt Hoffman (Johnstown, PA /Greater Johnstown ) (Johnstown, Pa. / Greater Johnstown), another 3-pointer by Shannon and yet another by Sweetney, to tie the game at 60-60 with 9:46 remaining in the game.
With a chance to regain the lead for the first time since 4:54 mark of the first half, the Red Flash made a defensive stand, but turned the ball over. They forced another stop on defense, but again turned the ball over.
Senior guard Marquis Hall made SFU pay with a layup at the other end to give the Mountain Hawks the lead for good, 62-60, with 8:40 to play. After they tied the game at 60-60, Saint Francis came up empty on 10 straight offensive possessions. The Red Flash went 0-for-6 from the field and had four of their 10 turnovers during the span of 5:34.
SFU wouldn't get any closer than seven points the rest of the way.
The Red Flash only had five free throw attempts in the game, but made all five, and shot 40.3 percent from the field (25-of-62). SFU continued its torrid pace from long distance by making 12-of-23 attempts for 52.2 percent accuracy, and made 7-of-12 (58.3 percent) in the second half.
Freshman Will Felder (Cleveland, OH/Lutheran East Hs) (Cleveland, Ohio / Lutheran East) just missed a double-double with eight points and eight rebounds. Shannon had a team-high four assists as SFU had 20 assists and just 10 turnovers on the night. Four of Saint Francis' turnovers came on offensive charges.
Sweetney's 11 points gave him 1,150 for his career, moving him into 22nd on the school's all-time scoring list.
