Center Valley, PA (February 24, 2018) - The DeSales University men's basketball team fell to Misericordia University for the second straight year, 74-59, in the MAC Freedom Championship game on Saturday afternoon in front of a packed house in Billera Hall.

The Bulldogs (20-7) will await a possible bid into the ECAC Tournament, announced on Monday to see if their season is extended.

Senior Shaundell Fishburne (Southampton, NY) was outstanding on Saturday, scoring a team and career-high 20 points as the lone double digit scorer for the Bulldogs.  Junior Luke Connaghan (Warrington, PA) had nine points and six rebounds.

Sophomore Tony Harding was named the Tournament's Most Valuable Player, finishing with 25 points and six boards.  Jason Kenny added 10 points and a game-high eight assists, while Tre' Fields also posted double digits with 10 points.  Stone McCreary came off the bench to total 17 points.

Misericordia never trailed in this one as both teams came out ice cold and with a little bit of nerves in front of a packed Billera Hall.  The Cougars scored the first nine points of the game before a lay-up from senior Steven Ciotti (Yardley, PA) broke the string for the Bulldogs.

MU went up 13-4 before both teams went scoreless over the span of 5:15 combining for 14 missed shots and five turnovers.  DSU cut the Cougar advantage down to four at the 5:23 mark but again went cold missing the front end of one-and-one's twice and two more field goals before Misericordia took an eight-point edge into the halftime locker room.

Neither team shot well in the first half as MU converted just 29.6 percent and the Bulldogs just 27.3 percent.

The Misericordia lead was double digits for most of the first eight minutes of the second-half before Fishburne took over, nearly single-handedly climbing DeSales back in the game as he scored 10 of DSU's 13 points over a span of four minutes pulling the hosts to within three (43-40) at the 10:03 mark.

MU responded with a quick 5-0 run to go back up eight points and after the Bulldogs pulled within six at the 7:17 mark, the Cougars got hot from outside the arc as Harding hit two 3's and McCreary knocked down three straight all of which were assisted by Kenny who forced double teams in the lane and found open men each time.  MU's lead was 16 at the 3:30 mark after McCreary's third straight triple and the Cougars never looked back from there.

The Bulldogs finished the game shooting a season-low 36.7 percent from the field and had 20 turnovers.  MU finished the game shooting 40.0 percent after hitting 50.0 percent in the second-half and were 9-for-20 from deep, 7-for-11 in the second-half.