WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
>> Saint Francis falls to Merrimack 75-68 in Northeast Conference (NEC) men's basketball action on Saturday.
>> Josh Cohen (Lincroft, N.J.) paced the Red Flash with 24 points, nine rebounds and tied a career-high with six assists.
>> Maxwell Land (Cincinnati, Ohio) tallied his third double-double of the season with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

TURNING POINT OF THE GAME
With Saint Francis holding a 65-60 lead with 5:38 left in the game, the Warriors closed the game by scoring 15 of the final 18 points. Land gave the Red Flash its largest lead at five points on a 3-pointer, but that was the last field goal the team would make on the afternoon.
 
After Land's 3-pointer, Saint Francis finished the game 0-for-7 from the floor, 0-for-5 from 3-point land and turned the ball over four times. The three points in the final 5:38 came from the foul line, where the team was 3 of 4 in that span.

FLASH QUOTES
"Certainly, a very competitive basketball game and came down to the last three minutes of the game with the score tied and I told the team that I thought there were two periods where we didn't execute the best that we needed to do. I thought we did a pretty good job of taking care of the basketball for the better part of 40 minutes but again we had two stretches at the end of the game and in the beginning the game, but we just didn't make the plays that we needed to make." – head coach Rob Krimmel on the game
 
"We had some open looks but couldn't knock them down. Some turnovers - their kids feed off that type of stuff. You give them some energy, some life. They were pretty down and out. Two of their best players were in foul trouble. We had them on the ropes, and we just didn't finish." – redshirt junior Josh Cohen on down the stretch
 
"Basketball that just the way it is. Playing high school, AAU, Friday-Saturday, Saturday-Sunday games, just having that mindset of not worrying about the past and just getting better for the future." – junior Maxwell Land about moving on after a loss
 
FLASH MOMENTS
Trailing 14-5, the Loretto team went on a 14-5 run of its own to tie the game at 19 with 10:35 left in the first half. Marlon Hargis powered the run with five points, while Wisler Sanon II (Sicklerville, N.J.) tied the game with a basket from downtown midway through the stanza.
 
In the second half with Merrimack holding a 46-39 lead, the Red Flash stormed back with an 8-1 spurt to take a 47-46 edge. Cohen and Sanon each had three points in this stretch with Sanon's bucket giving the Frankies the one-point lead. He finished the game with six points.
 
Saint Francis then used a 10-2 run to erase a three-point margin and hand the Red Flash its largest lead at 65-60 with 5:38 on the clock. It was a captain's run with Land draining a pair of 3's and Cohen adding two baskets in the paint for four points.

FLASH NUGGETS
Cohen finished the game two points shy of 1,000 points for his career going into the team's next game on the road at St. Francis Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon. He will become the 43rd player in program history to reach the feat, the 20th since the Red Flash joined the NEC in 1981-82 and the fifth under head coach Rob Krimmel. With his 24 points, the redshirt junior has 542 points this season to notch the fourth most in Krimmel's tenure as head coach and is only 22 points shy of Isaiah Blackmon's 564 points in 2019-20, the most under Krimmel. He is also 10 points away from a Top-15 mark in program history for a single-season.
 
With his nine boards, he became the 10th player in the last 11 years to haul in 200 boards in one season and now has 478 caroms in his career. With two points and 22 rebounds, Cohen would become the 20th player in program history to register 1,000 points and 500 rebounds in Loretto.
 
Cohen notched his 13th game with at least 20 points this season and 16th time in his career. He also added nine rebounds or more for the 10th time this season with seven of those occasions accompanying a 20-point output. In addition, he tied a career high with six assists, matching the six helpers he had against Bryant at home on February 3, 2022. Cohen has handed out at least three assists 11 times this season with two games with at least five dimes. 
 
Land registered his third double-double of the season/career and his second at DeGol Arena. After turning the trick twice in the first three games of the season, the junior had his first double-double since his 13-point, 11-rebound game against Cornell on November 14. Land has posted eight rebounds or more in three of the six games against Merrimack. His nine rebounds at Merrimack last year marked his NEC best before this afternoon's outpouring, while it was the seventh time this season he had at least eight boards. Land has also registered double figures in points in three-straight games and in 10 of the 12 league games.
 
Hargis finished the game with nine points and five rebounds. Brad McCabe (Manasquan, N.J.) had eight points to have his string of three-straight double-figure point games snapped.
 
The loss was the first for the Red Flash at DeGol Arena this season in NEC play, and ended a six-game home winning streak dating back to December 8 against Saint Vincent. The team is 8-4 at home in 2022-23.
 
With four games remaining, Saint Francis heads into its final road trip of the year in a three-way tie with Wagner and Sacred Heart. With Stonehill not eligible, it's a tie for third place in the league. St. Francis Brooklyn, the next opponent is a half-game behind at 6-7. The Red Flash will battle three teams fighting for at least one postseason home game down the stretch.

NEXT TIME OUT
Saint Francis returns to action when it starts its final road trip of the season at St. Francis Brooklyn on Thursday. The Terriers are playing at the Pratt Institute this season and the start time is 2 p.m.