LORETTO, Pa. – Senior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring) and junior Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist) both recorded double-doubles, but the Saint Francis men's basketball team couldn't recover from deficits to start each half in a 74-62 defeat against in-state Northeast Conference rival Robert Morris on Thursday night at DeGol Arena.
Nelson picked up his first career double-double with 10 points and 10 assists, and Sweetney recorded his second straight double-double with a game-high 22 points and 11 rebounds to go with four assists. He was 8-of-15 from the field, and 6-for-6 from the free throw line.
Jimmy Langhurst connected on four 3-pointers to lead the Colonials with 19 points. Jeremy Chappell added 16 points, six rebounds, five assists and three steals, and Dallas Green had 13 points, six rebounds and four blocks.
SFU fell to 5-23 overall, and 2-15 in the NEC, and will close out its season with Senior Day festivities at 7 p.m. on Saturday night, when Fairleigh Dickinson comes to Loretto.
The Red Flash fell behind 10-0 and went without a field goal until Sweetney laid in a Nelson pass at the 15:30 mark of the first half. It sparked a 15-7 run that pulled SFU within two points, 17-15, over a span of 5 minutes, 30 seconds. Rob Robinson, who finished with nine points and five assists for RMU, gave his squad a four-point lead 19-15. But Junior Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) hit his only jumper of the night to pull the Red Flash within a bucket. Sweetney came down with a huge defensive rebound at the other end of the floor, and started a text book fast break. He fed to senior Marquis Ford (St. Petersburg, FL /St. Petersburg) (St. Petersburg, Fla. / St. Petersburg), who forwarded a pass all the way up the floor to Nelson at the base line. Nelson then hit Sweetney streaking down the lane for a slam dunk that tied the game at 19-19 with 7:50 to play.
Robert Morris (20-10, 14-3 NEC) scored the next four points and would build its lead back to six on a Langhurst trey that made it 29-23 with 2:35 remaining in the first half. However, Nelson made a layup and Sweetney found Ford for a 3-pointer from the corner at the buzzer to pull the Red Flash within 29-28 heading into halftime.
But the Colonials opened the second half with another 10-0 run to jump out 39-28 just three minutes in, and expanded that lead to 55-37 with 9:57 to play. They outscored SFU 26-9 over the first 10 minutes of the half. Just as they have done all season long, the Red Flash kept battling and got it down to single digits, 69-60, with 2:57 remaining. Saint Francis had the ball with a chance to cut it to as a little as six points, but a shot clock violation gave the ball back to RMU, which scored the next five points to put the game out of reach.
Senior Steve Profeta (Carnegie, PA /Chartiers Valley ) (Carnegie, Pa. / Chartiers Valley) had 10 points, three assists and two rebounds off the bench, and senior Grant Surprenant (Palatine, IL /Palatine) (Palatine, Ill. / Palatine) tallied eight points and tied a career high with six rebounds. Ford also had eighth points and three rebounds.
