Center Valley, PA, (January 21, 2006) – The DeSales University men’s basketball team suffered a tough loss on Saturday afternoon in Billera Hall, surrendering an 11-point second-half lead and falling to the University of Scranton, 62-58, in an important Freedom Conference match-up.

 

        DSU is now 10-5 overall but just 2-4 in the Freedom Conference standings with two of those losses coming at home where the Bulldogs have enjoyed tremendous success over the past few years.  The win moves Scranton to 13-4 overall and 5-1 in the league standings as its stays in sole possession of second place.

 

        The Bulldogs seemed to have complete control of this game thru the entire first half and the early stages of the second half before Scranton made a late rally to take the lead and held on in the end to steal the important road victory.  DSU out-rebounded the Royals, 30-27, shot 47.7 percent from the field as compared to Scranton’s 43.1 percent but committed 18 costly turnovers which proved to be the nail in the coffin.

 

        DSU opened up a quick 7-2 lead on a trey by junior Drew Christman (Whitehall, PA/Whitehall) and consecutive lay-ups from Christman and sophomore Eddie Ohlson (Allentown, PA/Parkland) to start the game.  The lead hovered between two and four points for quite awhile before a mini 4-0 run by Scranton tied it at 14 with 7:27 to play in the opening half.

 

        A three-pointer from freshman Jeff Raimo (Allentown, PA/Allentown Central Catholic) started an 8-0 spurt that made it 22-14 in favor of DeSales with 4:43 to go.  Scranton chipped away getting within five points twice before a lay-up by sophomore Phil Stricker (Womelsdorf, PA/Conrad Weiser) and a three-pointer at the halftime buzzer by Ohlson made it 31-21 as the two teams headed to the locker rooms.

 

          DSU shot 57.1 percent from the field in the opening half and Scranton canned just 34.6 percent.  Stricker tallied a game-high 11 points thru the first twenty minutes and sophomore Randy Arnold had a team-high eight for Scranton.

 

        The second-half started out much like the first with Christman hitting back-to-back three’s to give DSU a 37-28 edge with 16:26 to go before the momentum shifted to the Royal bench.  A tip-in by sophomore Tom Bicknell, a trey by Arnold, a lay-up by Arnold and a three-pointer from sophomore Ryan Kirk finished off a 10-0 run that erased the DSU lead and made it 38-37 in favor of Scranton on the scoreboard.

 

        Junior Steve Kriczky (Birdsboro, PA/Daniel Boone) answered the run with two consecutive lay-ups sandwiched around another Kirk three-pointer and we were tied at 41 with 10:13 left.  The second lay-up by Kriczky was followed by a three-pointer from Christman and a lay-in from Raimo and DSU again held a comfortable five-point edge but a 12-2 run over the next 3 ½ minutes was the decisive blow as the Royals turned a five-point deficit into a five-point lead, 53-48 with 4:49 to play.

 

        During the 12-2 run, three different Royals hit three-pointers including Arnold, Kirk and freshman Paul Hawk.  Two freebies from Christman were followed by two charity tosses from Stricker and lead was cut to one point with 2:41 to play.  An Arnold trey was answered by a three from Christman over the next two minutes and with 20 seconds left Scranton had a slim 57-56 lead.

 

        On the ensuing inbounds DSU fouled Hawk who went to the line and calmly hit nothing but net on both his free throws, Ohlson raced down the court and converted a lay-up with 11 seconds left and DSU again fouled Hawk who again hit nothing but cotton on his freebies and this time a fall away three-pointer from Christman hit front rim and Scranton had escaped with the come from behind win.

 

        Christman finished with a game-high tying 21 points including five three-pointers.  Stricker finished with 14 points, but just three in the second-half all of which came from the free throw line.

 

        Arnold equaled Christman with 21 points and added four steals, Bicknell totaled 10 points and blocked three shots and Kirk tossed in 15 points on five treys.