LORETTO, Pa. – The Saint Francis men's basketball team got 55 points from the three seniors it honored prior to Saturday's Northeast Conference game against LIU Brooklyn, but the Blackbirds overcame a 12-point second half deficit to beat the Red Flash in overtime, 94-89. Ronnie Drinnon (Jamestown, Ohio/Greenview) led all scorers with a career-high 28 points. Freshman Josh Nebo (Katy, Texas/Cypress Lakes) tied the school record with six blocked shots.
 
That senior class – Drinnon, Greg Brown (Odenton, Md./Archbishop Spalding) and Ben Millaud-Meunier (Montreal, Quebec/Vanier) – came out on fire. The three players scored the first 19 points for the Red Flash. That streak ended with a Malik Harmon (Queens, N.Y./Christ the King) three pointer and a Basil Thompson (Philadelphia, Pa./Imhotep Charter) dunk to give the Flash a 24-14 lead less than nine minutes into play. The dunk started with a steal by Harmon and a feed from Brown to a streaking Thompson. Saint Francis scored nine of its 13 fast-break points in the first half.
 
LIU Brooklyn managed to draw the lead back to within six on a Nura Zanna layup with 7:41 to play, but Millaud-Meunier scored the next five points for the Flash to boost the lead back to 34-25 with 6:51 left. He scored 11 of his 18 points in the first half. Drinnon converted two layups, including a three-point play, on back-to-back possessions to push the lead back to double-digits, 41-31, with 3:49 to play. Georgios Angelou (Halkida, Greece/Lykeio Kanithou) scored with 33 seconds left in the half to give SFU a 47-39 lead at halftime. Angelou finished with 10 points, one shy of his career high that he set at Robert Morris last week.
 
The Blackbirds climbed back into the game by outscoring SFU 24-14 in the paint and 9-3 on second-chance points in the second half. Even with those numbers, Saint Francis held a two-possession lead until Martin Hermannsson's layup with 3:18 to play cut the Flash lead to 76-73. Hermannsson hit two free throws with 30 seconds left to trim the lead to 79-78. After Harmon hit a free throw on the other end, Joel Hernandez tied the score at 80 with a layup with just 21 seconds remaining. Saint Francis took the final possession, but Harmon's jumper and Thompson's put-back attempt were both unsuccessful in the final three seconds.
 
That gave LIU Brooklyn the opportunity to take its first lead since early in the first half when it scored 11 of the first 15 points in overtime. Trailing 91-84, Millaud-Meunier hit a three pointer with 55 seconds left to cut the lead to 91-87. After one free throw make, Thompson scored on a layup to cut the game to 92-89. Hermannsson iced the game, however, with two free throws with just three seconds left.
 
Thompson finished with 11 points. Drinnon added 10 rebounds to notch his 16th double-double of the season. He came into the game ranked 12th in the nation in that category. He now has 757 career rebounds, moving him ahead of Devin Sweetney (2006-10) for 13th place on the school's all-time list. He also surpassed 900 career points in the game, now sitting at 920. Brown's nine points moved him past the 800-point mark in his career. He has 804 points. Millaud-Meunier hit four three pointers to move past Rahsaan Benton for third place on the school's career list.

Nebo already moved into second place on the single-season blocks list, and he had his most prolific shot-blocking game of his rookie season. His six blocks tied him with four others for the most in a game in school history. Melvin Scott had the last of those games, recording six blocks against UMBC on Jan. 27, 2001.
 
Saint Francis finishes the regular season with games at Wagner on Thursday and Sacred Heart on Saturday before the NEC Tournament begins in early March.