BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, N.Y. (Dec. 2, 2010) – Saint Francis' struggles with turnovers continued in a 57-44 Northeast Conference-opening loss at St. Francis-NY in men's basketball action on Thursday night at the Pope Physical Education Center.
The Terriers used a 9-0 run in the first half of the second half to take control, and the Red Flash were never able to recover. Saint Francis had 20-plus (22) turnovers for the third straight game.
SFU fell to 2-5 overall on the season, and 0-1 in the Northeast Conference. St. Francis-NY improved to 2-3 overall in its league-opening win.
The Red Flash will return to action at 2 p.m. on Saturday when they visit Long Island University. That game can be heard live on The EDGE 1400 AM (Loretto), and a link to listen will be available at www.myedgeradio.com.
“St. Francis-NY made it very difficult on us to get any rhythm in our offensive game tonight,” said Saint Francis head coach Don Friday. “We need to take better care of the basketball, and we need to find the right combinations. We will work hard to play better basketball on Saturday against another tough opponent at Long Island.”
Sophomore Umar Shannon (Atlantic City, N.J./Atlantic City) (Atlantic City, N.J. / Atlantic City) paced the Red Flash with 15 points and had 3 rebounds and 2 assists. Sophomore Anthony Ervin (Chesterfield, Va./Fork Union Military Academy) (Chesterfield, Va. / Fork Union Military Academy) had 14 points and 2 rebounds, and senior Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) added 10 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists.
Akeem Bennett had a game-high 22 points and 3 steals for the Terriers, while Ricky Cadell and Stefan Perunicic added 12 and 10 points, respectively.
The Red Flash trailed 24-21 at the half, and battled back to tie it at 26-26. St. Francis-NY used a 7-0 run to take a 33-26 lead, but SFU pulled to within 33-30 on a Jukic layup with 14:54 remaining. However, St. Francis-NY answered with another 9-0 run over the next 3:48 to take a 42-30 lead.
Saint Francis chipped away and cut it to 45-40 when Jukic made both ends of a 1-and-1 with 8:23 remaining. After four straight Terriers' points, Ervin cut it to 49-42 with a floater with 6:02 left. But St. Francis-NY six points and held the Red Flash scoreless over the next 5:02 to put it out of reach.
Shannon had a game-high 11 points at halftime on 4-of-7 shooting, including three 3-pointers, as the Red Flash went into the break trailing 24-21. SFU had a 17-12 lead when Shannon hit a jumper with 7:52 left. However, the Terriers went into the double bonus with 6:15 remaining, and went on a 12-4 run to end the half.
In his first career start, junior Jon Taylor (Bowie, Md./Montgomery College-Germantown) (Bowie, Md. / Montgomery College) had 1 point, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 assist and 1 steal in the first 20 minutes. He finished with a career-high 8 rebounds and 2 blocks in a career-high 20 minutes.
Bennett also had 11 points at the break, while Ricky Cadell had 6 points, for St. Francis-NY.
For periodic men's basketball updates on Twitter, follow Director of Athletic Communications Bob Volkert at SFUVolkert.
