LORETTO, Pa.  (Dec. 18, 2010) – Sophomore Anthony Ervin (Chesterfield, Va./Fork Union Military Academy) (Chesterfield, Va. / Fork Union Military Academy) had a career-high 20 points, but Drexel used a 7-0 run late in the second half to hand the Saint Francis men's basketball team its first home loss of the season, 61-57, on Saturday afternoon at DeGol Arena.

 

Sophomore Anthony Ervin (Chesterfield, Va./Fork Union Military Academy) (Chesterfield, Va. / Fork Union Military Academy) had a career-high 20 points, while senior Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) and sophomore Chris Johnson (Newport News, Va./Denbigh) (Newport News, Va. / Denbigh) had 10 points each.

 

Samme Givens paced the Dragons with 19 points and 16 boards, and Gerald Colds and Chris Fouch pitched in with 17 and 10 points, respectively.

 

The Red Flash dropped their seventh straight game to fall to 2-9 overall. They will be back in action at 7 p.m. next Thursday when they visit Cincinnati. Drexel, fresh off an upset at No. 20 Louisville, improved to 8-1 on the year.

 

“I thought our kids really competed hard, not just today, but in practice the last two days,” said “I think you saw today for 38 minutes today, against a very good Drexel team, is that we have a pretty good program too. It's not showing right now in wins and losses, but our kids are competing without fear. We will take the positives out of this game, and we will get better from it.”

 

Despite leading scorers Will Felder (Cleveland, OH/Lutheran East Hs) (Cleveland, Ohio / Lutheran East) and Umar Shannon (Atlantic City, N.J./Atlantic City) (Atlantic City, N.J. / Atlantic City) playing limited first half minutes due to foul trouble, Saint Francis went into the break trailing by just one, 29-28. Felder played only five minutes, while Shannon logged 10 minutes of action.

 

Drexel's Daryl McCoy made a layup out of the break to make it 31-28, and Givens, after an Ervin 3-pointer, gave the Dragons a 33-31 lead moments later. But Felder hit his first basket of the game, a 3-pointer, and sophomore Tony Peters (Roselle, N.J./Seton Hall Prep) (Roselle, N.J. / Seton Hall Prep) hit a jumper to give the Red Flash a 36-33 lead with 16:20 to play.

 

Saint Francis would lead for most of the second half, and took its largest lead, 47-43, with 8:26 remaining. However, Drexel held SFU scoreless for the next two minutes during a 7-0 run to take a 50-47 lead. The Red Flash didn't score another field goal until Jukic made a layup with 2:33 left, cutting a seven-point Dragons lead to 56-51. Saint Francis cut the lead to two points, 56-54 with 12.8 seconds left, but Fouch made a pair of free throws with 10.3 seconds left to seal Drexel's win.

 

The Red Flash had a season-low five turnovers in the game,  shot 46.8 percent (22-of-47) from the field. Drexel held a 36-22 advantage in rebounds, and shot 46.3 percent (19-of-41) from the floor. The Dragons were 20-of-34 from the free throw line, while SFU connected on 8-of-12 attempts.

 

For periodic men's basketball updates on Twitter, follow Director of Athletic Communications Bob Volkert at SFUVolkert.