Purchase, NY (January 10, 2018) - Five players reached double digits leading the DeSales University men's basketball team past Manhattanville College, 88-78, in MAC Freedom action on Wednesday evening in Kennedy Gymnasium.

Sophomore Tracy Simsick (Harleysville, PA) led the Bulldogs (11-3, 2-1 MAC Freedom) with 16 points and grabbed a career-high nine rebounds.  Sophomore Kweku Dawson-Amoah (Stewartsville, NJ) (15 pts., 8 reb.) and junior Luke Connaghan (Warrington, PA) (14 pts., 8 reb.) controlled the paint, senior James Smith (Hillsborough, NJ) continued his strong play off the bench with 13 points and four assists, and freshman Mike Bealer (Harleysville, PA) made four 3's off the pine for 12 points.

The Valiants (6-8, 0-3 MAC Freedom) got 21 points from Dom Arena and 20 tallies from Alex Tuci in the loss.

The Bulldogs led for all but four minutes in this game scoring nine of the first 11 points with Simsick and Connaghan scoring all nine.  The game was tied at 32 late in the first-half when DSU scored the final six points on two buckets from Smith and a jumper from sophomore Alex House (Norristown, PA) to take a 38-32 lead into the locker room.

DeSales quickly pushed its advantage up to double digits (44-34) just 2:42 into the second-half and used a quick 7-0 run later in the half to lead 62-47.  The Valiants got within single digits and as close as seven late but the Bulldogs hit 9-for-12 from the charity stripe over the final 90 seconds to ice the win.

DSU finished the game shooting 50.8 percent from the field and took full advantage of MVC's 12 turnovers, scoring 19 points.

DeSales is back in action on Saturday when they host FDU-Florham in a MAC Freedom game beginning at 3:00 pm.